


The Next Chapter

by WatMcGregor



Series: Dead in the Next Chapter [2]
Category: EastEnders (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:22:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28435338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WatMcGregor/pseuds/WatMcGregor
Summary: Time has passed since the events of Dead on Page One, but is the threat still there?
Relationships: Callum "Halfway" Highway/Ben Mitchell
Series: Dead in the Next Chapter [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2082711
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	The Next Chapter

BEN  
The world looks different at this time of the morning. They sleep (or not, in Ben’s case these days) with the curtains open so that the city is spread out below them, a two-dimensional map traced out in lights. Here, curving round to the left, is the West India Dock Road, picked out in a snake of orange streetlamps; there is the flashing aircraft beacon at the top of the Canary Wharf tower. Cars are few and far between at four in the morning, but those there are light the roads like travelling pin-pricks. If you squint from this far up, the whole cityscape looks like a distant computer game.   
Inside the apartment, it’s quiet except for the rhythmic breathing of Callum beside him. The older man is cocooned deep under the duvet with only the top of his head showing. His suitcase stands at the bottom of the bed, packed and ready for him to leave in the morning for another trip as Jack Branning’s assistant. Ben gazes down at him from where he’s propped against the headboard and envies him his undisturbed slumber. From the bit of the duvet covering Ben’s thighs his laptop stares up at him, the cursor blinking like an accusation at the end of the last line he wrote, keeping time with the flashing light on the top of the tower outside. Keeping time with Ben’s heartbeat.  
He sighs. He’s got the plot; there’s nothing wrong with his ideas; he just can’t wrangle the words into any semblance of anything the public would want to read. The last line he wrote was two days ago and now he’s stuck, only a few paragraphs into chapter two. Every time he comes back to it, it’s with a sinking feeling he’s never experienced before when he writes. He glares at the half-empty screen and then types a few words furiously, his fingers speeding over the keys and pushing them down with a violence he wishes his latest villain would demonstrate. Any old rubbish, speeding over typos and too many commas, ignoring the imperfections in an attempt to breathe life into this ridiculous novel of his, however nascent.  
He wills himself to keep going, typing whatever comes into his head, trying to silence that most unforgiving of critics that sounds, to his mind, a lot like his dad. Beside him, Callum turns over in his sleep with a quiet moan. Ben ignores him and keeps plunging forward through a forest of words and punctuation until the voice in his head becomes overpowering, drowning out the quieter voice that gives him his inspiration. This is rubbish! What he’s written is rubbish.  
He reads back over what he’s typed and groans, despite himself. As he closes the laptop and shoves it onto the floor at the side of the bed, he feels a warm hand slide over his thigh.  
“Y’ alright babe?”  
He turns back round. Callum is blinking up at him with unfocused eyes.  
“No.”  
“Still strugglin’?”  
Ben nods as he slides down underneath the covers.   
“Why not take a few days away from it?” asks Callum. “Give it a bit of breathing space.”  
“Because me publishers are expectin’ the first draft in twelve weeks, Callum. I ain’t got nowhere with it, and it don’t look like I’m goin’ to in the near future unless I keep pluggin’ away.” Ben punches his pillow angrily, plumping it up and then throwing his head back onto it. “You know what it reminds me of at the moment? The bilge that bleedin’ psycho read to us in that hotel room.”  
Callum props himself up on his elbow. “Is that what it’s about? Yer worried cos he’s gettin’ out soon?”  
“He tried to kill me, Callum, and what did he get? Three years! It’s an insult, a bleedin’ joke!”  
Ben knows that Callum’s heard him railing against the sentence passed down to Joseph Swann more than enough these last three years, but he can’t help but repeat his views at every opportunity.  
Callum blinks at him, still half asleep. “Yer tense, babe. Ya need to relax.”  
“Of course I’m tense! And tellin’ me I need to relax ain’t gonna help, is it?”  
“OK, I’ll havta try an intervention then.” Callum breathes in deep through his nose, grunting as he lets the breath out again, and shifts across to be closer to Ben. His hand creeps further over Ben’s thigh, and he raises his upper body to plant gentle kisses on Ben’s neck and shoulders. “Just relax into what I’m doin’ for ya, and try not to be a dick.”  
There’s very few people that Ben would allow to talk to him like that. In fact, Callum might be the only one. He bites back a retort and concentrates on what Callum’s doing with the hand that’s under the covers, trying to enjoy it; trying to relax. He turns his face to capture Callum’s lips in a kiss and wills his mind to be still.  
It’s no good.  
He sits up again abruptly and pushes Callum’s hand away. “It ain’t workin’.”  
Callum pulls back and they blink at each other.  
“I’m out of sorts, Callum Highway,” says Ben. “Very much out of sorts.”  
“You are, ain’t ya?” agrees Callum. “You want me to call off me trip with Jack? I can always tell him I’m sick.”  
Ben entertains the idea for a split second. It’s not without its attractions. He imagines spending the rest of the week in bed with Callum, but then… book to write. Blood to sweat. “Nah, ya can’t sack him off. You’ll be back Friday, I’m sure I can cope ‘til then.”  
“OK, well don’t be so hard on yerself, you hear me? Give yerself a break.” Callum pulls the covers back up over his head. “Take the week off.”  
“Book to write!” Ben reminds him tetchily.  
“And don’t be a dick,” says Callum from somewhere near his shoulder.

The apartment is strange without Callum in it. Quieter, the few noises that do occur exacerbated by the silence, so that the fridge threatens to drive Ben to distraction every time the motor kicks in. There was a time he wouldn’t have noticed, might even have welcomed it as a sign that he was still alive. That was in the old days, though, when he was still kidding himself he didn’t need anyone. Since Callum moved in, he’s at risk of becoming dangerously dependent. He’s cleaned up his act, too. Drugs are few and far between these days, apart from the odd toke when Callum’s away, and casual hook-ups are a thing of the past, apart from a couple of occasions when he ‘went wrong’ early on in their relationship. It seems Callum had been working through a few things at the time, too, because his first response on learning about the waiter from the restaurant round the corner hadn’t been to pack his things and leave. No, he’d taken time to work out why Ben had done it, realising early on that it wasn’t a comment on his character, but rather a lack of something in Ben’s. He’d been forgiving. He’d worked hard to show Ben that he wasn’t going anywhere, that Ben deserved some happiness in his life and trying to sabotage it just wasn’t going to work. They haven’t had Greek food since though, and Ben hasn’t so much as looked at another man.   
Nope, Callum is more than man enough for him, and he’s filled his life in so many ways. Four years ago, Ben would have laughed if someone had told him he would enjoy the sound of someone singing tunelessly in his shower; messing up the carefully curated magazines on the coffee table; making an unholy mess in the kitchen when they could easily just pop around the corner for a cordon bleu meal in one of the local restaurants. That’s not to say Ben’s undergone a complete personality transplant. No, he can still be a pain in the arse when he wants to be – he prides himself on it when it’s needed - but Callum will always call him out on it. Always. Annoying git.  
Ben is not missing him. Not at all. It’s Tuesday. He’s managed to make a bit more progress on chapter two, but it’s been slow and tortuous. He’s doubting himself, is the thing. He’d sailed through the publication of seven books and it’s only now, on his eighth, that he’s beginning to second guess himself. He wonders if it’s something to do with how settled he is in his personal life. Before, he’d been writing against the world, seeking solace and comfort in the pages he’d fired off, using them as a salve against the hurt in his life. He can’t say he’s got a lot of hurt these days, though, and maybe his writing’s suffering as a result. He’s getting soft in his old age.  
He glances at the time in the bottom right corner of his laptop screen and sees that it’s past one o’clock. Reaching blindly for his mobile as he reads over what he’s just written, he waits until he reaches the end of a paragraph and then pulls up the number of the French restaurant in the plaza downstairs from his apartment. Lunch order placed, he scrolls idly through some old interviews of his online, trying to remember a bit of the inspiration and enthusiasm he used to feel about writing Foxton Thwaite. The old bastard has softened now that he’s spent the last two books with a young copper he first took a shine to when they were working on the same case. He’s even started being a bit nicer to his son. Maybe Ben needs to inject a bit of conflict into Foxton’s life to bring back some of the bite. Maybe… Ben’s mind starts whirring in that way that tells him he might be on to something… maybe the copper was only ever with Foxton for what he could get out of him, career-wise. Maybe Foxton Thwaite is about to get a dose of his own medicine.  
Ben can feel his stomach burbling with the excitement he always used to feel when a new plot grabbed him early on. He pulls up the word document again and starts firing plot points onto the page, disjointed lines and the odd word here and there. Reminders and prompts for when he comes back to it.  
The lift buzzer sounds and he crosses to pick up the intercom. It’s the concierge from downstairs in the lobby. “There’s been a food delivery for you sir. I’ll place it in the lift for you.”  
“Yep thanks Andrew. Send it on up.”  
Over lunch, he texts Callum. Think I’m on-track again with the novel! Thinking I might go out for a wander to let it stew a bit x  
He presses send, and then adds another message. Hope you’re having a good time up there in Scotland x  
He knows Callum won’t get his messages for a while. Jack’s appearing at a fiction festival in Wigtown, so he’s probably up to his eyes in it at the moment. Nevertheless, the reply comes through before he’s finished his lunch. Yeah? Great news babe! x Steady on – going outside, scary! xx  
Ben rolls his eyes. No one takes him seriously.

There’s a nip in the air when he goes out. Autumn is fading and it’ll soon be thick coat and scarf weather. The Thames is choppy, grey under a gunmetal sky, and passers-by walk quickly with their heads down. Ben loves this kind of weather, the breeze and the chill make him feel alive. He shoves his hands deep into the pockets of his leather jacket and watches the ripples on the water, stopping every now and again to work out his bearings from the various landmarks. It’s great not to be staring at a blinking cursor on a screen, and he hates to say it, but maybe Callum had been right. He should have taken a few days away, given his brain some respite. Maybe when he’s finally churned out his first draft and submitted it to his publisher, he could pay for a week away somewhere, just him and Callum. A holiday cottage over the Christmas period by the sea, Cornwall maybe. He snorts quietly to himself. That sounds like the sort of thing a middle-aged man would do! It sounds like something he’d quite like though; maybe he’s getting old. He’ll have a look online when he gets back, see what’s available to book. Maybe he could make it a surprise for Callum. He loves treating him, loves that bashful look Callum gets on his face as he tells Ben he should stop spoiling him, he’s got his own money and can pay his own way. What’s the point of being loaded, though, if you can’t splash out on someone you love?  
A couple of miles further up the river there’s a courtyard café set back from the river between towering office buildings, and Ben stops off for coffee and cake. It’s pretty empty and the bloke behind the counter looks hard at him. Ben tries to school his features into something that doesn’t look like Ben Mitchell, best-selling author. It must work, because the bloke relaxes into a smile as he brings across Ben’s order, and walks away without trying to make any small-talk about how much he loves Ben’s work and how he’s got a novel of his own he’s been working on for the last fifteen years.  
Ben takes out his phone and scrolls through his messages as he eats his cake. His heart stops as he sees there’s one from his editor, Isaac, but it’s only a ‘hi, how ya doing?’ message, along with a plea, passed on from the PR department, for him to make more use of his twitter account. Ben rolls his eyes. They’ve had so many conversations about this. His publisher thinks the public need to – nay, deserve to – know more about Ben’s day to day life. Ben thinks it just gives the crazies more opportunities to have a pop at him. Nevertheless, he snaps a quick picture of the café, careful not to identify it in case he wants to come here again, and adds it to his twitter feed along with a comment. Even authors need days off. Coffee and cake while the brain recharges.   
He adds a thumbs-up emoji, ironically as he rolls his eyes again, sends a single-word message to @IsaacEd (Happy?) and shoves the phone back down on the table. It always blows his mind how he can post any old rubbish and before he’s even put his phone back in his pocket, three hundred strangers will have responded. He’s started to play a little game with himself. He takes a guess at how many likes there will be within a certain time period. He’s never got it right yet; he always underestimates. One thing he will never underestimate, however, is how bored the rest of the population must be, to hang on his every online word. Ben only follows a couple of people with any dedication. One is Jack Branning, so he can be sure he knows what his rival’s up to. The other is an up and coming young author who’s been touted as the new Ben Mitchell. Laughable. There’s only one Ben Mitchell. It doesn’t hurt to keep an eye on him though, or on his sales figures.   
“I knew you were famous!” says the bloke behind the counter when Ben takes his plate and mug back. “I couldn’t be sure, but that bloke told me who you were.”  
“What bloke?” asks Ben.  
The server points behind him to one of the tables at the side of the courtyard, but then his face falls. “Oh, he’s gone. Oh well. He knew who you were though, seemed as interested in you as I was.” He laughs. “Maybe a bit more.”  
“Lovely,” says Ben, feeling a slight prickle of discomfort, like he always seems to these days when he’s the subject of scrutiny from the unwashed masses. “D’ya want me to sign somethin’?”  
“What? Oh no, you’re OK. I never really get star-struck. You’re no better than the rest of us, are you?”  
“Um, no. If you say so,” says Ben, concern blotting out his resentment at the bloke’s comment. He peers around them, looking out for the other man. “What did he look like, this other bloke?”  
The server thinks a while as he wipes down the counter. “Couldn’t really say, to be honest. Bit nondescript. Scruffy beard; ginger? Blond? Can’t remember, sorry.”  
Ben is beginning to feel distinctly panicky. He tells himself not to be so stupid, and takes a few steps backwards, anxious to be on his way. “Right, well, thanks for that.”  
The server raises a hand in farewell and Ben retraces his steps towards the river, trying to calm his nerves. Ridiculous to think Joseph Swann’s come out of prison and immediately made a beeline straight for Ben. No, if he’s got any sense he’ll stay well away. The bloke at the café was probably just a random fan. Nevertheless, Ben marches back along the river towards home at a much quicker pace than he’d set out earlier, and it’s not until he’s back in his living room, staring out at the city from a safe distance, that he calms himself and remembers to check his twitter.   
Four hundred and seventy-two likes, and a handful of comments. What is wrong with people! He casts a glance over the comments.  
Crimefic-lover: Aww nice xx  
PanhandlePatty: @TrevorTreason17: We’ve been there!!!!!!  
BenBooks: Hope ur havin a nice day x 😊   
BenMitchellLightsMyFire: Who’s IsaacEd? Is Ben not with Callum n e more? What’s happened? Saw them at Dartington LitFest, they were so good together ☹  
So far, so innocuous. His eyes glaze over as he scans the rest of the messages until a word leaps out at him halfway down the page. He reads the message again, his unease growing. The back of his neck prickles cold with dread.   
MysteryMan: Not with your useless bodyguard today then? Or is he still trying to get through the window?

CALLUM  
Callum breathes a sigh of contentment as he pushes open the door to the apartment block. He’s always happy to be home, especially when he’s been away without Ben, although he can never quite get over the fact that home now is a luxury penthouse apartment in one of London’s swankiest buildings. Ben seems perfectly at ease with it, and always swaggers across the vestibule in his customary manner whenever he comes and goes. Callum can’t help but creep in as if he’s likely to be thrown out by the doorman if he’s noticed.  
“Evening sir,” says the very same doorman as Callum steps inside, bringing a cold draft and a swirl of leaves with him.  
“Evenin’ Andrew,” says Callum, straightening his shoulders a little. “Y’alright?”  
“Yes thank you sir. Good trip?”  
“Not bad, not bad.” It had been mercifully short. Callum loves that he gets to travel all over the world, and a tiny voice in his head tells him sometimes that he’s glad his employer is now laid-back Jack who loves his fans and spends all the time he can with them, and not sarcastic, aggressive Ben, who thinks the whole world’s against him, but he hardly ever sees much outside his hotel room and the venues Jack appears in, so he quite likes the three or four-day trips in the UK.  
“Not seen much of his lordship,” adds Andrew.  
“Nah? That must mean he’s writin’ again.” Callum’s pleased. Writing Ben is happy Ben, and he doesn’t mind admitting, it’s almost a second full-time job keeping him happy when he’s struggling with a plot or a character. In his experience, rock stars have nothing on crime writers in the diva stakes. He heads towards the lift, pulling his suitcase behind him.  
“Had a man here asking after him,” says the doorman.   
Callum’s heart freezes. Is Ben up to his old tricks again? “Oh yeah? When was this?”  
“Earlier today. Didn’t want me to call up and didn’t want to leave a name, said he’d be back.”  
Oh, did he? Callum keeps his face non-committal as the lift arrives. “OK, I’ll tell him. Thanks Andrew.”  
Riding up in the lift, he tries to decide if he should be worried. By the time he’s reached the eighteenth floor and keyed in the special code to allow him to ascend to the penthouse, he’s made up his mind. Of course he should be worried. Ben’s been on his own for four days. He’s been struggling with writer’s block. Just because Callum worked out that he always does things to sabotage himself when he’s feeling bad, it doesn’t mean he’ll just stand by and watch it happen again and again. It doesn’t give Ben bloody Mitchell a free pass to trample all over Callum’s feelings whenever he feels like it. The lift arrives at its destination and he steps carefully into the apartment.  
Ben is in the kitchen area crashing and banging around at something, and there’s a split second where Callum sees him before he realises he’s in view. He visibly freezes at the sound of the door closing behind Callum, and glances furtively towards the lift before his face relaxes into a smile. It’s not looking good, then. Callum wonders if it was the waiter from the Greek restaurant again.  
“God am I glad to see you!” exclaims Ben, with what Callum fancies is a little too much enthusiasm to be genuine.  
“Are ya?” he asks.  
“Course! I missed ya. Look! I missed ya so much I’m tryin’ to make a cake for ya. I was googlin’ interviews with crime writers, and Stella Heath – remember her? That feminist harpy from New York? She said she relaxes by baking, so I thought I’d give it a try. I mean, how hard can it be, right?”  
As Callum walks closer, he can see that most of the kitchen area and a significant part of Ben is covered in flour. The worktop is strewn with utensils and ingredients, and this is so much worse than Callum even guessed at. “Why on earth would ya be tryin’ to make me a cake?” he asks tiredly. “You ain’t never baked anything in yer life”.  
Ben takes a few steps towards him and then hesitates, evidently noticing at that point that this isn’t the enthusiastic reunion he was hoping for. “I finished me chapter and wanted to do somethin’ nice for ya. You alright, babe?”  
“What was his name this time?” asks Callum.  
Ben frowns. His look of confusion is almost convincing. Almost. Callum knows him nearly as well as he knows himself these days though, and Ben Mitchell has never been subtle. Callum sighs. “The bloke who’s bin hanging around downstairs, askin’ after ya. Wanted a repeat performance, did he?”  
Strangely, the pallor that appears on Ben’s face at that point is something Callum doubts even he could fake. Maybe he does have a conscience then – or more likely, he’s taken aback at being found out so quickly. “Wh-what bloke?” he asks.  
“Dunno. He didn’t leave his name. Said he’d be back.”  
“Shit!” Ben sinks onto his elbows on the kitchen counter and buries his face in his hands.  
Callum’s had enough. He pulls his suitcase behind himself towards the bedroom and leaves it at the end of the bed. He doesn’t bother to unpack it; he’s thinking he might save himself some time when he has to pack up the rest of his belongings too. God knows where he’s going to go, though.  
He hears a footstep in the doorway and turns to see Ben hovering there, an uncertain look on his face. “Cake’s in the oven,” he ventures quietly. This isn’t like him. It’s not like him at all. He could almost be said to be subdued. He takes a step into the room. “I, uh… I thought you’d be pleased to see me an’ all. You tired? Is that it?”  
Callum turns to face him with resignation. “Tired? Yeah, I s’pose you could say I’m tired Ben. Tired of this happenin’ again.”  
“What?”  
“Don’t treat me like an idiot, Ben! You’ve had a bloke here, and now yer tryin’ to make up for it with ridiculous gestures. Bakin’ me a cake, for god’s sake! Yer just takin’ the piss, ain’t ya?” He pushes past Ben and heads back to the living area, but then turns back as another thought strikes him. “And don’t think I’ve forgot the first time I met Stella Heath, neither! It weren’t cake she had in her gob then, was it?” He shakes his head sadly. “There’s a theme with you, ain’t there Ben? And maybe I’ve bin kiddin’ meself thinkin’ you’ll ever change.”  
“Oh well thanks for yer faith in me!” shouts Ben. His form of defence has always been to come out fighting. “I mighta known I could never rely on you, neither! I’m best on me own, ain’t I? Stupid of me to ever think anyone else cared about me.” He strides past Callum into the kitchen area and wrenches open the oven door. Grabbing a tea towel he pulls out the two cake tins and throws them straight into the sink. Cake batter sprays up the wall and the water in the sink hisses violently as it fills the hot tins.  
Victoria sponge. It looked like Ben had been trying to make a Victoria sponge.

Callum can hear a tapping sound, like a very quiet woodpecker. He keeps his eyes tight shut and shifts further under the covers, trying to ignore it. It stops for a while, and then starts up again. All hope of sleep faded, he turns over to see Ben sitting up in bed beside him, scrolling through his phone and tapping out words every now and again.  
“Whatcha doin’?” Callum asks reluctantly. They’re not exactly on speaking terms at the moment. They’d gone to bed in silence and slept with a huge space down the middle of the bed, turned away on their own sides.  
He thinks Ben’s going to ignore him for a second or two, but eventually, he mutters, “Checkin’ me twitter.”  
Because that’s the most important thing to be doing at…Callum glances at the bedside clock. Jeez! Two-thirty in the morning. He closes his eyes and tries to get back to sleep, but he’s too far awake now, and he’s thirsty. “’M goin’ to get some water,” he mumbles as he eases himself out of bed. “You want anythin’?”  
Ben glances up at him as if he’s only just realised he’s there. “Get us a beer, would ya?”  
Callum gives him a severe look, but does as he’s told. Once in the kitchen, he throws caution to the wind and gets one for himself too, trying to ignore the congealed cake batter on the wall. He is definitely not going to be the one clearing that up tomorrow! When he goes back into the bedroom and hands over a beer, Ben drops his phone onto the duvet and looks up at him expectantly. “Right, now you’ve got over yer strop, I’m gonna tell ya what’s really bin goin’ on for me while you’ve bin away.”  
Remembering Ben’s monumental meltdown from last night, Callum thinks it’s a bit rich for his own behaviour to be described as a ‘strop’, but he holds his tongue and waits to hear what ingenious excuse Ben’s come up with for his actions.  
Instead, Ben picks up his phone and shoves it at Callum. “Read that!”  
“What am I readin’?” asks Callum, staring at Ben’s twitter feed.  
Ben grabs the phone back, rather roughly in Callum’s opinion, considering his recent misdemeanours, and jabs his finger at one of the replies. “It’s him, he’s outta prison and he’s come straight after me again.”  
Callum reads the message. It does sound like it could be Joseph Swann, but then, the whole world knows the ins and outs of Ben’s trauma at the hands of a psycho stalker, thanks to the press reporting practically every detail of the court case. It seemed to Callum they lingered much longer than was necessary on the failed rescue attempt by what turned out to be Ben’s new lover, in a development that blindsided the gossip world. He glances up at Ben and only now sees the haunted look in his eyes. Maybe he hadn’t been trying to cover up yet another case of cheating. Maybe he was genuinely scared; genuinely relieved to have Callum back to look after him.  
He tries for reassurance. “This could be anyone, Ben. It might not be him.”  
The haunted look doesn’t disappear from Ben’s eyes. He hugs his knees to his chest in a gesture of self-comfort, his beer bottle dangling from one hand. “I went out and sat in a café when you was away, and when I went to leave the bloke behind the counter told me someone had bin watchin’ me all the time I was there. You said yerself someone’s bin hangin’ around downstairs, and it’s a bit weird they wouldn’t leave their name, ain’t it?”  
Callum’s heart freezes just a little. He tries to impose some logic on the situation. “Well yeah, but… yer safe here, ain’t ya? He can’t get to ya. We’ll just monitor the situation and get the police involved soon as we need to. If we need to. If it’s him.”  
“Look.” Ben scrolls further down his twitter feed. “Look at this comment here.”  
The same username. We’ll always have NY.  
Callum glances up at Ben again. He sees his own concern mirrored in Ben’s eyes. Twenty seconds ago, Callum would have put good money on it just being some random trying to wind Ben up. Now he’s not so sure.  
“I’ve spent practically the whole week holed up in this place, and you come home and instantly have a go at me,” points out Ben.  
“So you ain’t had a bloke in here?” asks Callum, watching him closely.  
“No! I tried to tell ya.”  
He looks genuinely upset that Callum would doubt him. Maybe Callum’s misjudged the situation. But making a cake? The best jury in the land would agree with him that that’s incriminating behaviour for Ben Mitchell, totally out of character.  
“Did you really wanna make me a cake for no other reason than you’d missed me?” he asks.  
Ben looks embarrassed. “You dare tell Jack flamin’ Brannin’, I’ll change the code to the lift and make sure you never live ‘ere again, understand?”  
Callum takes the beer bottle from Ben’s hand and places it with his own on the bedside cabinet, then turns back to the younger man. “I’m sorry I doubted ya. But you have got form, ain’t ya?”  
“Not for ages,” says Ben. “I told ya, I’m tryin’ to be a new man for ya.”  
“Yeah,” says Callum quietly. “You are, ain’t ya? I’m sorry. I missed you an’ all. I was lookin’ forward to getting’ home to ya. Had it all planned, what we was gonna do.” He strokes a hand down Ben’s chest.  
The younger man shifts closer to him. “Oh yeah?”  
“Yeah. Role play, Ben.”  
Ben groans quietly. “Oh my god! What sort?”  
“Weeelll...” says Callum, stretching out his words and sliding his hand under the cover. “I was thinkin’ at the time, motorist and AA patrolman.” Ben’s stomach is very warm. So’s his thigh when Callum smooths his hand lower, purposely missing the area Ben will be wanting him to stroke. “I was gonna fix yer car on the side of the road and then we’d realise yer membership had lapsed, so I’d havta make you pay for the repairs in a very special way in the back of me van.” He sees Ben’s eyes widen momentarily, and notes his breathing start to get shallower. “But now…” he adds, “I’m wonderin’ if we oughtta do a Bake Off role play.”  
“Yeah? How would that go?” murmurs Ben in a husky voice.  
“I’d havta judge the quality of yer bakin’, but I might find it lackin’, in which case you’d have to do a few things for me in front of the cameras to get Star Baker.”  
“Oh my god! I’d do anythin’ Paul!” moans Ben, his hips bucking and his lips locking onto Callum’s.

“There’s bin another one!”  
Callum looks across the room from where he’s scraping the cake batter from the kitchen wall to see Ben momentarily distracted from his phone.  
He looks bemused. “Babe, the cleaner’s coming in later. You don’t have to clear up.”  
“I ain’t leavin’ the place like this for her to see,” grunts Callum, straining to reach the remnants of the mix just above head height. “What would she think of us?”  
“And that there is the very definition of working class,” says Ben. “Makin’ the place tidy for the cleaner.”  
“What? And you ain’t workin’ class? What you got there anyway? You said there’d bin another one.”  
“Yeah, look.” Ben advances, holding out his phone, and Callum glances down at it to see another message from the same username. Happy chance, happenstance.  
What d’ya think it means?” asks Ben. He’s got that look on his face again. The same one he had last night that Callum now realises is his ‘I’m scared to death but trying hard not to show it’ face.  
Callum wonders if it’s a warning. Maybe Joseph Swann is planning to oh so accidentally bump into Ben later. It hits him a couple of seconds later: there’s no doubt in his mind now that the mysterious poster is Joseph Swann. Perhaps Ben should stay indoors today. Perhaps he, Callum, should go out and scout around, see if he can spot the bloke. He’s beginning to wonder if he’s camped out just outside, waiting for his next encounter with Ben. He drops his scrubbing cloth and washes his hands carefully, and then crosses to take Ben in his arms. “I think,” he says quietly, “we should tell the police.”  
“Oh finally!” exclaims Ben, gripping Callum’s shirt tight in his fists. “Boy wonder’s worked out that callin’ the police is a good idea BEFORE you try any heroics.”  
“Yeah, alright,” says Callum, more or less at peace with the fact that he’s never going to live down what he did or didn’t do back in New York. “Maybe they can trace the ISP thingy this bloke’s posting from.” He smooches Ben for a minute or so, feeling him relax into him. “I’m gonna go down the shop, get some bits and pieces. You should call that detective who was yer liaison officer last time. Alright?”  
He feels Ben take a deep breath. “Yeah, OK,” he says quietly.  
“And don’t worry,” says Callum, stepping back and taking Ben’s face in both his hands. “He won’t get anywhere near ya as long as I’m here to stop him.”  
He’s grateful that Ben doesn’t make reference to New York again. He sees the younger man open his lips to form words, but then he evidently thinks better of it. Callum guesses he was going to ask him not to leave him on his own. He guesses residual pride prevented him.   
“I’ll go now, an’ I’ll be back before the cleaner gets here, alright? Don’t buzz anyone up until I’m back.”  
“OK.”   
Callum kisses him and heads for the door. “And call that detective. Now!”  
Andrew is again on duty downstairs. Callum wonders if he ever goes home. He greets him with a “Morning!” that’s cheerier than he’s feeling, and crosses to the door. Behind him, the lift starts its journey back up the building.  
“Oh!” says Andrew just as Callum’s about to step through the door. “That man was here again earlier sir. Not too long ago.”  
Callum stops instantly. “Yeah?”  
“Yes. I think he’s fishing.”  
At Callum’s uncomprehending face, Andrew explains further. “I don’t think he really knows if Ben lives here, sir. I think he was trying to find out but of course I didn’t give anything away.”  
“Thanks Andrew.” Behind Callum, the lift door pings open. “How long ago was this?”  
“Cal, you forgot yer wallet.” Ben steps out of the lift, holding out the wallet towards Callum. His expression changes as he hears his words. “How long ago was what?”  
“Someone’s bin sniffin’ around again,” says Callum. He sees Ben shrink into himself.  
“Not too long,” says Andrew. “He was hanging around across the road for a while, too. I saw him go into the coffee shop fifteen, twenty minutes ago.”  
“Right!” Callum strides through the door and out onto the street, looking around him wildly. Ben is instantly at his side. “Go back upstairs, babe.”  
“What, and leave him to ‘ave a pop at you?” asks Ben. “Don’t think so.”   
His eyes narrow as he spots someone across the road, and Callum sees him squint harder. He peers across to where Ben is looking, but can’t see Joseph Swann anywhere.  
“Oh my god!” exclaims Ben.   
Callum glances round at him again. His face has gone the colour of the pavement. Callum follows his line of sight to where a bloke has only now spotted them both. He’s waiting for a break in the traffic, and then he crosses to join them on the pavement. This isn’t Joseph Swann.  
“Alright Ben?” says the bloke. “Long time no see.”  
“Dad?” says Ben in a child-like tone Callum’s never heard from him before.

BEN  
Ben tells himself he’s not disappointed. Phil’s face as he turns back from surveying the view from the living room window is blank, giving nothing away. Ben can’t tell if he’s impressed with what he’s achieved for himself or not.  
“Let me show you around,” he says. “There’s five bedrooms, c’mon.”  
He leads the way into the hallway that leads to those rooms, Phil’s footsteps plodding behind him. He tries not to walk too fast. It’s not often he has someone to show around, and he’s proud of what he’s got here, eager to show it off. “This one’s set up as a gym,” he says, opening a door on the right and doing the full estate agent, “not that we use it much.” He opens the door to his bedroom. “This is…uh…our room. Mine and Callum’s. Got the best view, see.” He gestures towards the window and Phil crosses obediently to look out over the view he’s just seen from the living area. He pauses there a while, and again Ben holds his breath, waiting for his dad’s verdict.  
Finally, Phil turns around, that same blank look on his face. “Fallen on yer feet here, ain’t ya?” He stares at the king-size bed with a look of distaste on his face, and then crosses back to the door. “Must’ve cost ya a packet.”  
“Yeah,” says Ben. “Got it with the royalties from me first three books. Mind you, it’s probably doubled in value since then. One downstairs went for - ”  
“Coffee, Phil?” asks Callum, appearing at the end of the hallway.  
“Uh, yeah. Cheers.” The same look appears on Phil’s face as when he’d stared at their bed. He’d always known about Ben’s gayness in theory. It’s obviously going to take him a bit of time to get used to the reality. Gayness in the flesh, so to speak. Ben knows Callum’ll win his dad over though. He’s never met anyone yet who didn’t succumb to his charms within an hour of meeting him. Apart from Ben himself, that is, but he’s made of sterner stuff. He can protect himself with a steely determination where emotional attachments are concerned.  
They head back to the seating area and Callum pours coffee from the cafetiere. Phil looks at it like he’s never seen one before.  
“So, what you bin up to, dad?”  
“Same old, same old,” says Phil. “Runnin’ the Arches.”  
“Why d’ya suddenly decide to seek out Ben?” asks Callum. He’s been quiet ever since they came in. Quieter than Ben’s used to. He’s noticed him sizing Phil up a couple of times, smiling just a second too late at Phil’s pleasantries to be wholly concentrating.   
“He’s me son,” says Phil, barely looking in Callum’s direction.  
“He was yer son all them years he didn’t hear a peep outta ya, an all,” points out Callum.  
“Cal,” warns Ben. Callum is an idiot. Phil’s made the effort, that’s all that matters. He’s being the bigger man by seeking Ben out, and it must have taken a lot for him to make the first move. He sees Phil’s eyes wander over to the shelf on which Ben’s Golden Dagger awards are lined up, five of them now, since he won another one for ‘Coming Out Fighting’ two years ago. “They give ‘em out for the best crime novel,” he says proudly. “I’m the only person to have got five of ‘em. 2018, 2017, 2015, 2014 and 2013.”  
“What about 2016 and 2019?” asks Phil. “There someone better than you them years, was there?”  
Ben can sense Callum bristling beside himself. He lays a gentle hand on his knee to calm him down, and doesn’t miss the way Phil’s eyes flicker at the movement. “I didn’t publish anythin’ them years, dad,” he says evenly. He’s determined not to be wound up by his father. Maybe the question was asked in all good faith and he’s going to give him the benefit of the doubt. “Have ya read any of me books, dad?”  
The scoff from Phil takes him right back to being a kid again, desperate for a crumb of approval from a man who was impossible to please.   
“Nah,” says Phil. “Don’t ‘ave time for that rubbish.”  
Ben darts a quick glance at Callum, but he’s glaring at Phil with unconcealed distaste.  
“I mean,” adds Phil, “fiction. Not really me thing. Sports pages of the Sun, that’s about me limit.” He cracks a faint smile in Callum’s direction. “No idea where he gets it from, this writing lark.”  
“No,” says Callum, and for such a tiny word, it’s working hard in that sentence. Ben hears a warning, disdain and protectiveness all wrapped up in it. Callum’s an idiot. He knows his dad better than anyone. He can hold his own against him, now he’s all grown up.  
There’s a long silence where Callum and Phil stare each other out.   
“Praps you oughtta read ‘em,” says Callum. “I did. They told me a lot about Ben. About his past.”  
Ben lays his hand on Callum’s knee again and squeezes tightly. Callum removes it, but Ben reinstates it.  
“I’m proud of him,” says Phil, his gaze never wavering from Callum’s face. “I don’t need to read his books to know that.” He gestures loosely with the hand that’s not holding his coffee mug and looks down at Ben’s hand on Callum’s knee, another faint grimace passing over his features. “I mean, he ain’t livin’ his life how I’d want him to. He’s always bin too headstrong for that, but he’s made a success of himself. Surprised me no end, so credit where credit’s due.”  
Ben thinks maybe he’d like to bottle this moment and keep it on the shelf alongside his awards. The only time he’s ever heard any praise from Phil. Maybe he did exactly the right thing all those years ago, getting out from under his shadow. They do say absence makes the heart grow fonder. He can’t say he’s fond of Phil, though; there have been far too many hurts and humiliations for him to feel anything but dread with regard to the man, but maybe they can start to build a new relationship, provided Callum doesn’t create a new animosity between them. The idiot’s still staring at Phil like he’s something the cat dragged in, and Ben can’t make eye contact with him to telegraph that he needs to lay off.  
The thing is, Phil is making, has made, an effort, and Ben should meet him halfway. “Listen dad,” he says. “Why dontcha come round for a meal sometime soon?”   
“A meal?” Phil looks like Ben’s just suggested they fly to the moon.  
Ben tries for a more down-to-earth approach. “Yeah, come for yer tea. Cal’ll cook somethin’ for us. He’s a dab hand in the kitchen, ain’t ya Cal? Give us yer number and we’ll book somethin’ in.”  
For a split second, Phil looks like the idea of eating something messed around with by the man who’s messed around with his son is the worst idea he’s ever heard. Immediately, however, he schools his features into something resembling lukewarm enthusiasm. “Yeah,” he says. “That’d be, uh… good.”  
Callum once again removes Ben’s hand from his knee and wanders off to check his messages, the effort involved in playing nice proving too much for him, and Ben feels the tension in the room reduce by about a half.  
“You had me worried,” he says to Phil with a laugh. “That nutter who stalked me’s back out of prison. When I heard a strange man had been hangin’ around downstairs I thought he was up to his old tricks again.” He sees that Phil’s looking nonplussed. “You did read about it, didn’tcha dad? It was in all the papers.”  
Phil’s brow clears. “Oh! The bloke who tried to kill ya? I thought that was some American nutter.”  
“Nah, English. Funny thing is, I interviewed him for a job. That’s how it all started.”  
“Sour grapes, eh? Tryin’ to mess up yer life.”  
“Yeah, just a bit. I interviewed Callum too. That’s how we met. He’s not an employee anymore though. Funny how things can go, ain’t it?”  
“And he ain’t tryin’ to mess up yer life?” asks Phil.  
“Nah, course not!”  
Phil shakes his head almost imperceptibly. “Just be careful, Ben. People like him, hangers-on, they’re probably only after yer money.”

Ben finds Callum unpacking his suitcase in the bedroom after Phil’s taken his leave. He approaches him from behind and sneaks his arms around his waist, then plants a kiss on his shoulder.   
“Someone’s in a good mood,” says Callum, wrestling a shirt onto a clothes hanger.  
“Yeah, maybe,” says Ben. “We arranged for him to come for his tea next Tuesday.”  
“Just be careful, Ben. You don’t know what he’s after.”  
“Funny, he more or less said the same about you.”  
Callum turns in his arms and looks at him closely, scrutinising every feature on his face. He opens his lips as if he’s about to speak, but then closes them again.  
“What?” says Ben with a half-laugh.   
He can see Callum debating something in his mind. Eventually he asks, “Untimely Death… what you wrote about Foxton in that one…?”  
Ben shrugs. “Which bit?”  
“The bit about leavin’ his boy on the side of the road, miles from anywhere, to teach ‘im a lesson. Is that… was that true? Did that happen to you?”  
Ben buries his face in Callum’s chest, and it’s seemingly all the confirmation Callum needs. Ben feels him draw in a deep breath, his chest rising and falling, and hears him whisper a single word. Despite how quietly he says it, it’s all the more shocking because Callum just doesn’t indulge in that kind of language normally. “Bastard!”  
“I’m a big boy, Cal,” says Ben, pulling back so that Callum can see the sincerity in his eyes. “I can look after meself.”  
“Alright,” says Callum, “but I’m tellin’ ya, if he hurts a single hair on yer head - ”  
“What’ll ya do?”  
Callum strokes a soft hand through Ben’s hair. His next words are at odds with his actions and make Ben shudder. “I’ll kill ‘im. Swear to god.”  
“How ya fixed for this afternoon?” asks Ben, feeling a familiar flutter in the pit of his stomach.  
“How d’ya mean? You want me to kill ‘im now?”  
Ben chuckles, and slides his hand in between Callum’s legs. “Down boy! Course not. It’s just, you talkin’ like that, bein’ all protective, it does weird things to me. I wondered if maybe ya wanted to see what it does to me cock.”  
“I think I can probably guess, to be honest,” says Callum. Nevertheless, he throws the shirt he’d been holding onto the floor and clears his suitcase from the bed with one swipe of his arm, then pushes Ben down onto his back and dives for his fly.

They’re dozing in each other’s arms an hour later when the intercom sounds. Immediately, both of them are wide awake. They stare at each other with wide eyes, holding their breath.  
The intercom sounds again, and suddenly Ben relaxes. “Shit! Forgot – the cleaner’s due.”  
Callum groans. “She’ll havta clean round me, I ain’t gettin’ up.”  
“Well that’ll be an unexpected treat for her,” says Ben, chuckling as he slides out of bed and pads through to the living room to let her in. “C’mon up Natasha. Can ya give the main bedroom a miss? We’re a bit busy in there.”  
He hears a sigh on the intercom and grins to himself. It’s a good job he pays his cleaner over the odds; she deserves some danger money from time to time. “Yes,” says Natasha. “I give the bedroom a miss.”  
“An the kitchen’s in a bit of a mess. Sorry ‘bout that,” adds Ben.  
“No worry. Is what I am here for.”  
“Yer a darlin’,” says Ben and pushes the button to allow Natasha up to his floor, before jogging back to the bedroom before she can catch him without any clothes on.  
“Well! There’s a sight fer sore eyes,” says Callum, watching every part of him come to a stop beside the bed. “You fancy another round?”  
“I’m sure I could be persuaded,” says Ben, getting back into bed and stretching his body out on top of Callum’s.   
They hear the lift door open and Natasha cross to the kitchen. Then they hear her footsteps approaching the bedroom door. She calls out in a quiet voice, “Mr Mitchell sir, I have something for you.”  
“That’s a pity, cos I have something fer me boyfriend right now,” says Ben, rolling his eyes and then kissing Callum. He pulls back and calls out to Natasha. “Can ya leave it outside the door, darlin’?”   
“No, no! I was told I must give it to you in person.”  
Ben and Callum frown at each other, and reluctantly get out of bed. As they search around for their clothes, Callum asks, “You expectin’ any deliveries?”  
“Not that I know of,” says Ben, glancing over at his phone as it pings and the screen lights up to show the screensaver of him and Callum together with the Statue of Liberty behind them. He grabs it but carries on pulling on boxers and t-shirt.  
More or less dressed, they both go out into the living area, where Natasha holds out a small package to Ben.  
“Wait!” says Callum, intercepting it before Ben can take it. “This could be anythin’.”  
“Gonna carry out a controlled explosion, are ya?” asks Ben.  
He’s met with a severe look from Callum. “Don’t joke, Ben. Like I said, it could be anythin’.”  
He holds the package up to his ear, then shakes it gently.  
“Well if it’s a bomb, yer gonna set it off shakin’ it like that, ain’t ya?” scoffs Ben. He sees Natasha’s eyes widen at his words. “Don’t worry,” he says. “It ain’t a bomb.” The reassuring smile on his face fades though, as he watches Callum gently and slowly undo one end of the package. “Careful, Cal.”  
Callum peers inside the package, and Ben watches as his caution gives way to confusion. Ben’s phone pings again to remind him of the message awaiting him, and he taps in his passcode and pulls up the message while Callum tears at the tape on the rest of the package and unwraps two books. No, one book, that’s been torn in two. It’s a copy of Untimely Death, Ben’s fifth novel.   
They frown at each other. Ben glances down at the message on his phone. It’s a picture message. A photo of Ben’s fifth novel, torn in two.

CALLUM  
Callum rests his forehead against the living room window and stares out over London, trying to work out where Albert Square might be. He guesses it’s out of sight, just around the bend in the river. Probably why Ben chose this apartment. Behind him, there’s the familiar click, click, click of laptop keys. It astounds him, how Ben can use uncertainty and worry to his advantage. Since they’d been in touch with the police again about the weird messages and the package, Ben’s been working flat-out on his novel, head down, shoulders hunched and mug after mug of coffee left to go cold at his side. It’s been eight days now. They’ve heard nothing more from the stalker (Callum refuses to give him his name; he’s just ‘the stalker’) and Callum’s due to be off travelling with Jack again at the weekend. He’ll be away for three weeks this time, and he dreads leaving Ben. The younger man has been putting a brave face on things, but Callum knows he’s worried. Every now and then he’ll catch him staring into space with a furrowed brow that eases immediately into a sanguine smile whenever he catches Callum’s eye.  
The stalker’s getting clever. He’d used a non-traceable SIM card to send the picture message, and there were no identifying marks on the package, not even a fingerprint. In fact, the only fingerprints the police had been able to identify had been those of Natasha, the cleaner, and Callum doubts she had anything to do with it. The stalker’s actions had clearly been intended to prove two things. One: he knew Ben’s phone number and two: he knew where he lived. Very clever. Top marks. Even his tweets had come from different internet cafes so he was totally untraceable.   
Thing is, the more Callum thinks about it, the more he realises they might also be able to find out where the stalker lives. Ben must have had his contact details as part of his job application those years ago. The police had said there was nothing they could do; that there could be a new stalker out there, but Callum’s not stupid. All these incidents have been happening since a certain J Swann was released from prison. How could they not be him?   
Maybe he just wanted to scare Ben, prove to him that he still has the upper hand. Now he’s made his point, maybe it’ll all stop just as quickly as it started up again. If it doesn’t though… well, Callum’s got a plan. OK, not a plan, as such. Just a conviction that he will find the stalker and put an end to his games once and for all. He’ll do it. Somehow.  
He crosses to sit beside Ben on the couch and snakes a finger over his knee, testing out how engrossed he is in what he’s writing, or whether he’s coming to a natural pause so that he can give him some of his time. Ben stops typing and reads back over what he’s just written, stroking his fingers over Callum’s absentmindedly.  
“S’comin’ together,” he says eventually.  
“Yeah? That’s good. I was worried you’d lost yer sparkle for a while back there,” says Callum.  
“Oh yeah? Worried I wasn’t gonna be able to keep ya in the manner to which you’ve become accustomed?” asks Ben with a smile. “Worried the income was gonna dry up?”  
“You know I ain’t with ya for yer money,” says Callum in a warning tone. “I dunno how many more times I’ll havta tell ya.”  
Ben sets his laptop to one side and pulls his feet up under him on the couch, turning to face Callum. “I know, I just…”  
“You just what?”  
“I don’t really know why y’are with me.”  
Callum rolls his eyes. “This is yer dad gettin’ in yer head again, ain’t it?”  
“Well he did have a point,” says Ben. “I told him how we met and he wanted to know why you’d left yer last boyfriend for cheatin’ but stuck with me when I did the same thing. He reckons there’s only one difference between him n me.”  
Callum sighs in frustration. “No, there ain’t, Ben! Yeah, you’ve got more money than Chris, but yer funny, excitin’, talented, a proper little sweetheart under that grumpy exterior, and I’m proud of ya fer what you’ve done. After the childhood you ‘ad, you coulda turned into a right psychopath. Instead, you just did a really good impression of one when we first met, but I know you ain’t like that deep down. You ain’t nothin’ like yer dad, and that’s all to yer credit.”  
Callum watches Ben sink further and further into himself as he speaks, embarrassment making him hunch his shoulders and pull himself in close. “Don’t listen to yer dad,” he says.   
Ben rubs his neck and tries to ease the tension out of it. “I dunno…” he says uncertainly.  
“Well I do!” says Callum. “He screwed you up before, don’t let ‘im get in yer head again. Promise?”  
“Yeah,” says Ben quietly.  
Callum begins to wonder if he should be more worried about Ben having contact with Phil for three weeks while he’s away, rather than the stalker making his presence felt again. Now that they’re back in touch with each other, Phil’s been round to the apartment twice already and Ben is desperate to rebuild his relationship with him. It seems all the hurt Phil had inflicted has been forgotten. Ben says he’s changed, but Callum’s reserving judgement. What’s more, Phil knows that he’s reserving judgement, and there’s an uneasy undercurrent to all their interactions that Ben tries his best to ignore.  
Callum sees that Ben’s still trying to ease the tension from his neck and shoulders, and pushes at his side. “Turn round.”  
“What?”  
“Turn round, face the window.”  
Ben does as he’s told and Callum begins to massage his shoulders, eliciting groans of pleasure from the younger man. He stands up to get a better angle, and Ben leans back against him. Callum loves it when Ben’s like this; he bets no one else in the world gets to see this soft side of him, and he thanks the universe every single day that he does. It’s worth more than all the money Ben could ever earn.  
He presses firm fingers into Ben’s shoulders, working on the knots in his muscles, until Ben turns and buries his face in his stomach, holding him tight. Callum strokes his hair. “You gonna be alright while I’m away?”  
“Havta be, won’t I?” asks Ben, his voice muffled. “Promise me you’ll call as often as ya can?”  
“Course I will.”  
“It don’t matter what time it is,” says Ben, looking up at him, “just call me, OK?”  
Callum kisses his forehead. “I will.”  
The intercom sounds and Ben immediately tenses up again. Callum strokes a soft hand down his face and crosses to answer it.  
It’s Andrew from downstairs. One day Callum really will have to ask him how many hours a week he works.   
“There’s a man here to carry out some maintenance on the lift, sir. I did send a note round about it last week.”  
“Uh… oh, OK.” Callum throws a questioning look across at Ben and mouths the words ‘lift engineer’. Ben shrugs, obviously not having seen the memo, and Callum releases the lift to travel all the way up to their apartment.   
“You really need to read all the stuff that gets sent to ya,” admonishes Callum, glancing across to the kitchen counter where a big pile of letters and papers is sitting.   
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll sort it all out one day,” says Ben, brushing away his concerns.  
The lift door opens a few seconds later and a Greek god steps out. Callum sees Ben perk up immediately.  
“Well, hellooo.”  
“Alright mate?” says the workman. “Just gotta tweak a few wires in yer intercom box, if that’s alright.”  
“You can tweak all the wires ya want,” says Ben. “Anytime.”  
Callum clears his throat loudly and Ben throws a grin in his direction.  
“I don’t suppose I could use yer lav before I start?” asks the bloke, oblivious.  
“Yeah, course. Through there, second on yer right,” says Ben.  
As the bloke heads for the bathroom, Ben keeping a close eye on his arse all the way, Callum clears his throat again.  
“Oh now don’t get jealous,” says Ben. “I’ve only got eyes fer you babe.”  
“Didn’t look like it,” says Callum.  
Ben hugs him tight. “I’m allowed to window shop! Don’t mean I’m gonna try the goods.”  
“I should hope not. I might not be so forgivin’ next time.”  
Ben becomes more serious, running a soft finger over Callum’s features, tracing the outline of nose, lips, eyelids. “Honest, you don’t havta worry babe. I know when I’m onto a good thing, and I’m certainly onto a good thing with you.”  
“Yeah, well, I’m gonna be callin’ you for booty calls every day I’m away, alright? Gotta keep ya on the straight and narrow somehow, ain’t I?”  
Ben grins. “I shall have to make ya jealous more often then, if it means I get somethin’ out of it.”

It’s something like six in the morning, UK time, when Callum makes good on his promise the day after he lands in Chicago with Jack. He smiles as he hears Ben sounding sleepy on the phone.  
“It’s yer first booty call.”   
Ben clears his throat. “Ah, OK, well let me just kick the lift engineer out an’ I’ll be with ya.”  
“Funny,” says Callum in a dry voice. “Did I wake ya?”  
“Nah, couldn’t sleep really. I was just dozin’ and thinkin’ about gettin’ up.”  
“Well you’ll havta stay in bed now, won’t ya?”  
“S’pose I will. My life is so hard, Callum Highway. You have no idea.”  
“Yeah?” Callum drops his voice to a low whisper. “Anythin’ else hard?”  
“Not yet, but I shouldn’t think it’d take long. What ya wearin’?”  
“Nothin’.”  
Callum hears a sharp intake of breath on Ben’s end of the line. “Show me!”  
“Let’s take this across to video,” says Callum. “Call me back in one minute.”  
“Right!”  
“When they connect via video link, Callum can see that Ben’s taken off his t-shirt and is struggling with his boxers. “Yeah, that’s right baby,” he says, “take it all off for me.” He feels like an idiot saying it, doing his poor, self-conscious version of a porno, but it seems to do the trick for Ben if his harsh breathing is anything to go by. He plays idly with himself while Ben shrugs out of his boxers and then stares expectantly at Callum on the screen.  
Callum sees his glance slide past him and a panicked look come over his face. He breathes out a word as his gaze fixes through the screen on something behind him. “Shit!”  
“What?” asks Callum.   
“He’s bin in here,” says Ben. “The bastard’s bin in our bedroom!”  
“What? How d’ya mean?”  
Callum watches the picture on the screen judder around as Ben gets off the bed, and then he sees the corner of the bed and some of the carpet as Ben crosses the room. The radiator comes into view, and then the floor as Ben bends to pick something up. Callum hears him swear quietly to himself off-camera, and then his face appears on-screen again. He’s looking haggard, haunted…defeated. He holds up one half of Coming Out Fighting, his last novel. Like the other one, it’s been torn in half.  
“This was stuffed down behind the chest of drawers,” says Ben. He looks around him cautiously, as if the stalker might still be in the apartment with him.  
“Get out, Ben,” says Callum, all thoughts of sex forgotten. “Get outta there right now.”

CALLUM  
Albert Square is deadly quiet as Callum’s taxi drops him off. The pub on the corner is closed, all its windows dark, and the garden in the centre is in shadow, illuminated only by a single street lamp. He pulls his coat closer around himself against the biting November air as the taxi drives off, and from somewhere behind him there’s the sound of a bottle being knocked over, a sudden, melodic clank followed by rapid clinks as it rolls on its side, speeding up and then tailing off as it comes to rest. Callum is immediately on high-alert, his heart racing. He stares around the Square, straining his eyes to see if there’s anyone there, but he’s alone. Must’ve been a cat or a fox knocking the bottle over.  
He gazes up at Phil’s house. It’s looking run-down, paint peeling off the back gate and the windows in need of a good clean. The upstairs room on the right is lit up, the light softened by the curtains that have been drawn against the night. He takes a deep breath and unlatches the gate, then steps through and knocks on the back door. He’s been in agonies the last three weeks, his brain working overtime to conjure up all sorts of scenarios, all of which involve Ben in peril. They’d talked on the phone at length, and Ben had convinced him that he had a duty to Jack (“however much of a cocky pain in the arse he is”) to see out his work assignment in the US, and Callum had reluctantly agreed, against his better judgement. Ben had spoken with his dad and Phil had agreed he could stay with him until Callum got back. It’s this that worries Callum more some days. He still suspects Phil of sinister motives; still can’t quite believe that he’s suddenly turned over a new leaf and wants to welcome his son back into his life with open arms.  
The man himself opens the door with the customary grimace he uses as a greeting for Callum.  
“Alright Phil?” asks Callum. “He OK?”  
“Course he’s OK,” says Phil, as if Callum’s question is ridiculous. “He’s upstairs. Writin’.” He says the last word as if it’s surrounded by quote marks.  
Callum gestures beyond him, wanting to keep the pleasantries to a minimum. “Can I?”  
“First on the right.”  
“Cheers.”   
As he dumps his luggage inside the door and ascends the stairs, Callum starts to wonder if he’s the only one who’s been worrying. The house is an oasis of calm, the sounds of the TV drifting up from downstairs, and the place looking as inoffensively domestic as it’s possible to be. It’s hard to believe that there is someone out there who means Ben harm.  
When he pokes his head around the door of the room Phil had indicated, Ben’s sitting at a desk beside the window, his laptop before him and his shoulders once again hunched as he types fast and furiously. Callum clears his throat and sees Ben freeze momentarily before he swings round in his seat.  
“Babe! Yer back!”  
“I am,” agrees Callum. “You OK?”  
“Yeah, never better,” says Ben, before he seems to remember why they’re meeting there in the first place. “Well… you know… considerin’. Dad’s bin lookin’ out for me, so…”  
Callum ignores the unease that once again prickles down his neck at Ben’s words. He crosses to be closer to him. “No problems with you-know-who?”  
“Nope, nothin’.”  
“Good. C’mere.” Callum takes Ben’s face in both his hands and bends down to look him directly in the eyes. “I missed ya.”  
“Yeah, I missed you an’ all.” Ben’s face creases into a mischievous grin. “Can’t exactly have booty calls here, can we? Me dad might walk in any minute. I think we should make up for that tonight, don’t you? If you ain’t too tired.” He reaches up and captures Callum’s lips in a kiss, then pulls back and looks around the room, smiling shyly. “This is me room from when I was a kid. Never thought I’d get to show it to ya.”  
“Nah, me neither,” says Callum, glancing dutifully around the room which has been redecorated in neutral colours since Ben moved out, obliterating any trace of him. Callum still feels like he’s missing something about Phil’s sudden turnabout. “Yer dad bin alright with ya?”  
“Yeah. He’s…” Ben tails off with a slight frown on his face. “I think he’s really tryin’, ya know. We ain’t never gonna see totally eye to eye, but a coupla times he’s looked like he wanted to lay into me, and then it’s almost like a switch has been flicked. He bites it back and just smiles.” Ben chuckles. “I can see the effort he’s makin’. S’pose I should be pleased he’s tryin’.”  
“Yeah,” says Callum quietly. He hopes Ben’s right to be pleased. He wonders how Ben can ever tell if Phil is smiling. It’s not an expression Callum thinks he’s ever seen on the man’s face.  
“Listen, babe,” says Ben, indicating his laptop. “It ain’t that I ain’t pleased to see ya, but d’ya mind givin’ me half an hour more? I’m at a crucial bit an’ I just wanna finish it off before we leave. Is that alright?  
“Yeah, course. I’m pleased yer makin’ progress,” says Callum.   
“Yeah, should’ve finished the first draft within the month, thank god! Go an’ sit downstairs with me dad. It’d do you two good to get to know each other.”  
Callum’s not so sure, but he does as he’s told with a diplomatic smile, planting a kiss on the top of Ben’s head for good measure before he goes.  
When he steps into the living room, after taking a wrong turn and opening and then hurriedly closing a door into the darkened dining room, Phil is sprawled in the only armchair, some kind of comedy panel show on the TV. Callum loiters in the doorway. “Alright if I come in? Ben’s just finishin’ up.”  
Phil shrugs, and Callum takes that as all the encouragement he’s going to get. He crosses to sit hesitantly on the couch and they watch the show in silence for a few minutes. In all that time, Callum darts quick glances over at Phil as the audience laughter sounds out at regular intervals. The older man doesn’t crack a smile once.   
“So, uh…” begins Callum eventually. “You and Ben. Funny that you suddenly decided to get back in touch.”  
“Funny, how?” asks Phil, swinging round to stare at him, his face impassive.   
Callum swallows hard and tells himself he’s not intimidated. “Bit random,” he explains. “I mean, it’s bin a long time.”  
“He’s me son,” says Phil.   
“Yeah, I know, but - ”  
“But what?” Phil lowers on the sound on the TV and throws the remote onto the coffee table. “What ya gettin’ at, eh Callum? You’ve got a problem with me, an’ I wanna know what it is.”  
“I just… you hear stories, dontcha?” asks Callum.  
“Do ya?” Phil crosses his arms, as if he’s settling down to hear the very specific story Callum wants to tell.  
“Yeah, relatives comin’ out the woodwork when their offspring make it big.” Callum decides he should probably stop talking about now. He sees Phil’s face turn red, but the older man takes a deep breath before he speaks.  
“You think I’m after his money? Is that it?”  
“Well…” says Callum, in a very quiet voice. “Ain’t ya?”  
“Let me tell ya somethin’,” says Phil. “Ben wouldn’t give me any money if I was the last bloke on earth, an’ I’m alright with that. I don’t want it. He’s got it into his ‘ead that I was some kind of monster when he was younger, so I ain’t exactly flavour of the month where he’s concerned. I’m tryin’ to build a relationship with him though, despite all that nonsense, and I could do without you lookin’ at me all the time like I’m the big bad wolf.”   
“So you sayin’ Ben’s lyin’ about ya?” asks Callum.  
“He always was one for stories,” says Phil. “Tellin’ the world I left ‘im on the side of the road when he was a kid? Makin’ out I’m one step down from Hitler?” Phil shakes his head. “Fiction. I should sue him for slander, honest I should but, well…he’s family, ain’t he? I gotta do right by him. Try an’ be the bigger man. An’ praps you should be a bit less gullible when it comes to the stories he tells.”  
He turns the TV up again, and they watch in silence. Callum’s brain is whirring. He doesn’t doubt Ben’s version of events for one second, having read his books – and he’s even less likely to, now that he’s met Phil. He can well imagine the hell the bloke put Ben through. Suddenly, through the fog, comes a single point of clarity. He turns back to Phil. “I thought you said you hadn’t read his books?”  
“What?”  
“You said you hadn’t read his books, so how come you know that he wrote about bein’ left on the side of the road? How d’ya know he tells people that character’s based on you?”  
Phil clears his throat. For the first time that evening he looks wrong-footed. “I ain’t read his books,” he says. “I’ve read interviews, reviews an’ stuff.”  
Callum is even more sure now that Phil’s lying, despite what he says. Ben has never, ever, told another living soul that he based Foxton Thwaite on his own father.  
The programme on TV ends and is replaced with another that’s almost indistinguishable. Phil seems to have exhausted his conversational skills, so Callum pulls his phone out of his back pocket and scrolls through messages and websites. He pulls up Ben’s twitter feed and glances down his recent posts. There’s nothing much since the message he tweeted back on October 22nd in the outdoor café where he says he was watched. The same day the messages from MysteryMan started. There’s only been a couple of tweets since Callum left for the US. One says three weeks need to go fast ☹. The other says workin’ workin’ workin’ 😊.  
There’s an assortment of the usual comments in response to the first. Callum scrolls through the names, pleased to see that ‘MysteryMan’ is nowhere among them. The second tweet provoked more responses than the first, and there’s a good five screens-worth of messages to thumb through from excited fans, eager for the next book. He hears Ben thunder down the stairs and he’s about to pocket his phone when he sees it. On the fifth page, near the bottom, another message from MysteryMan: Getting close. It was posted twenty minutes ago.  
Callum gasps quietly, and he glances quickly up at Phil to check he hasn’t noticed his reaction. The man is still staring at the TV with a face like thunder. The message is innocuous enough, on the surface. It’s a fair response to Ben’s message about progress on the new book, if you’re not looking for anything suspicious, but Callum knows better. He shoves his phone in his pocket and pastes on a smile as Ben pokes his head around the door.  
“You two gettin’ on OK?” asks Ben.  
“Like a house on fire,” says Phil in dry voice.  
“Finished what you was writin’?” asks Callum.  
“Yep, an’ I called a cab five minutes ago. Shouldn’t be long.”  
Ben sits down beside Callum and smoothes a hand down his thigh. Callum sees Phil’s eyes tighten, even though he’s still staring straight ahead at the TV.  
“Listen,” says Ben. “I was thinkin’. I was gonna keep it as a surprise, but I thought we should celebrate me finishin’ the first draft with some time away. How’s a clifftop cottage in Cornwall for Christmas sound?”  
“Sounds bloody lovely!” says Callum, his mind instantly full of windswept walks; evenings in by a roaring log fire and Christmas presents exchanged in bed after languid lovemaking.   
“Dad? You wanna come? It’d be great for us all to spend some time together,” says Ben in a small, hopeful voice.  
Phil drags his eyes away from the TV after a second or two. “Yeah. That’d be smashin’ son.” It’s hard to tell, but Callum thinks maybe there’s triumph in his look as he glances across at him. “You sure you want me there though? I mean, yer ‘boyfriend’ seems to think I’m only after yer money.”  
Ben throws a disappointed look at Callum. “He’s an idiot then, ain’t he? Course I want ya there. What was you plannin’ for Christmas otherwise?”  
“Visit to the boozer an’ a quiet afternoon watchin’ telly,” says Phil. “I would love to come, son. And yer right,” he grins at Callum, the first genuine smile Callum thinks he’s seen on his face. “Yer boyfriend is an idiot.” His phone pings with a message and he glances down at it and fires off a quick reply, smiling all the while.

Callum looks around carefully as they get into their cab twenty minutes later, his bodyguard training kicking in again. The Square is still quiet as the grave, no one in their right minds out on a night like this. It might be dry, but it’s turning ever colder so that their breath fogs in front of them.  
“So, you gonna start playin’ nice?” asks Ben where they’re settled into the back of the cab and it’s wending its way out of Albert Square.  
“How d’ya mean?” asks Callum, preoccupied with staring out of the window in case the stalker’s loitering. They stop at a red traffic light and he sits up straight, poised to spring into action if the door’s suddenly wrenched open and a knife is waved in Ben’s face.  
“Me dad,” says Ben. “He’s really tryin’ Callum. If I can meet him halfway, I think you should be able to. Stop tryin’ to fight non-existent battles for me.”  
“You honestly think he ain’t after yer money?” asks Callum.  
“I got no idea, but that don’t matter anyway, does it?” asks Ben, sounding exasperated. “He’ll soon get bored if that’s what he’s after, but just suppose he really does wanna make amends for the past? I’d be stupid to walk away, wouldn’t I?”  
Phil swears blind there’s no ‘past’ to make amends for, and he’s still got the capacity to hurt Ben. Callum’s heart aches with how desperate Ben is to reconcile with Phil, and glancing round at him he can see the hope in his eyes. Who is he to extinguish that? He rubs Ben’s knee gently. “Yeah,” he sighs, “course ya would.” He returns to staring vigilantly out of the windows, and tries to change the subject. “So, are the police any closer to workin’ out how that book came to be in the bedroom?”  
“Nah. They called yesterday to say they’d interviewed Andrew down in the lobby and he swears blind the only person he let into the flat was that sexy lift engineer.”  
“You think he’s tellin’ the truth?”  
Ben shrugs. “No idea. I’m getting’ so weary from it all though. Just wanna get home and take ya to bed.”  
Callum smiles round at him. “That don’t sound like the worst idea you’ve ever had, babe.”   
He puts an arm around Ben as the taxi drives past a figure bundled up against the cold, hoodie up, heading swiftly back in the direction of Albert Square.

BEN  
There’s something weird going on with Callum. In the taxi on the way back to the apartment, he’s physically close but emotionally distant. Ben really hopes he’s not going to kick up a fuss about Phil coming back into his life. Like he told him, it’s really not his battle to fight, and if Phil’s turned over a new leaf, well, Ben’s not about to shut him out. He’s not that childish.   
A little voice in his head tells him he has been that childish in the past, about lots of things. Perceived slights; imaginary feuds with other authors, but this is his dad they’re talking about. No matter what he’s done, Ben will always forgive him. He’s his dad.  
When they get back to the apartment, Callum pleads exhaustion and is soon fast asleep. No ‘glad-to-be-reunited’ sex for Ben then. Well sod him! If he’s going to get jealous because there’s another man in Ben’s life now, he can bleedin’ well go without.   
Ben gets up early the next morning, and is already deep into work on chapter seventeen when Callum surfaces, wiping the sleep away and aiming a bleary greeting in his direction as he crosses to the kitchen to fix himself some toast and coffee.  
“Thought you mighta stayed in bed this morning,” he says as he brings it across and sits near to Ben. “With me.”  
“Busy babe,” says Ben. “Life don’t stop just cos you’re home.”  
“No, I see that,” says Callum in a quiet voice. Ben carries on typing, but he can feel Callum’s gaze boring into him.   
The older man shifts uncomfortably. “Is there… are we OK?”  
Ben sighs loudly and tears his eyes away from his laptop with an effort. “Yeah. I’ve just got a job to be doin’.” He gestures at the screen. “Now, d’ya mind?” He ignores the way Callum’s expression, tentative and hopeful, falls just a little before he manages to conceal his hurt.   
There is silence in the apartment, broken only by the sounds of Ben’s fingers on the keys and Callum chewing his toast. Eventually, Callum finishes and places his plate on the coffee table, then clears his throat.   
“Yer bein’…”  
Ben huffs out another sigh. “I’m bein’ what?”  
“Yer actin’ like you did when we first met.”  
“Yeah? An’ how was that?”   
He stares Callum out, and sees a mix of emotions playing over the older man’s face. The need for conciliation battles with the need to let out the hurt he’s feeling right then, and Ben sees the exact moment Callum makes up his mind which it’s going to be. A look of defiance comes into his eyes. “Yer bein’ a right knob!”  
Ben can’t ignore the fact that it stings. “I’M bein’ a knob? You were the one who went all weird last night.” He throws his laptop to one side. “An’ I know exactly why, an’ all!” He sees confusion on Callum’s face, but ploughs on regardless. “You can’t stomach me dad bein’ back in me life.”  
“No, yer right,” says Callum with a half-laugh.  
“See? Yer jealous, Callum, that I’ve got someone else who’s lookin’ after me. You can’t handle sharin’ me!”  
“That’s ridiculous!” exclaims Callum. “Yer right, I can’t stomach yer dad bein’ back in yer life, cos I don’t trust him. After all them things he did to ya when you was a littl’un, why on earth d’ya think he’d suddenly turn into a different person? He’s after somethin’, Ben, and yer too stupid to see it!” Immediately, there’s a look of remorse on his face. “Shit! Sorry, I shouldn’ta said that.”  
“Nah, you shouldn’t,” says Ben, his mood darkening. “Who the hell d’ya think you are, eh Callum? You don’t know nothin’ about me and me dad. How dare you tell me I’m stupid? And for yer information, me dad’s bin brilliant about the stalker business. He even offered to warn him off for me. So you don’t know what yer talkin’ about!”  
“I’m sorry.” Callum reaches out to pull Ben into a hug, but Ben squirms away and strides across the room. “Where ya goin’? Come back Ben. Please don’t leave it like this. I wanna make it up to ya.”  
“I’m goin’ out,” shouts Ben, grabbing his coat from the bedroom and his keys and phone from the kitchen counter. “And you ain’t invited.”  
He hears Callum calling after him as the lift doors close. “Just be careful out there, Ben!” He ignores him.  
When the lift doors open downstairs and he strides out into the lobby, Andrew is in deep conversation with someone at the reception desk. He springs upright at the sound of Ben cursing to himself under his breath, and Ben glares at him, causing a shifty look to pass over the bloke’s face. Ever since the police interviewed him, he’s been weird around Ben. Everyone’s being weird around Ben these days! Apart from Phil.  
Ben rolls his eyes in Andrew’s general direction, and heads out onto the street. It’s cold, and he’s probably not wearing a thick enough coat, but no matter. Righteous anger will keep him warm for a while. He remembers the exasperation he felt at Callum when the bloke first started working for him, and it annoys him that he’s feeling the same again now, difference being, he can’t control how Callum behaves towards him anymore. He doesn’t pay the bloke. He can’t rein him in when he’s being bolshy.  
However, the fact remains he, Ben, is in a bad mood and it’s all Callum’s fault.  
The pavements are swarming with the last of the rush-hour commuters, and he barges past people, knocking shoulders with a few of them and not bothering to look back or apologise. They just need to get out of his way. He’s not to be messed with today.   
He stares straight ahead of himself as he strides, not looking to right or left, but suddenly he finds his gaze fixating on someone coming towards him. Is that..? No, it can’t be!  
The bloke’s eyes widen as he sees Ben, and he turns abruptly and tries to speed up, but the crowded pavement’s preventing him from getting away. Ben’s not so concerned about knocking be-suited finance workers over. He grits his teeth and picks up his pace, and the venom on his face seems to be enough for most people to throw themselves out of his way. The bloke up ahead darts across the road as the traffic lights a few metres further on change to red, and Ben weaves his way between stopped cars, keeping his eyes on that blond head all the while. He’s sure it’s him. He starts to run, catching up with the bloke just as he reaches the far pavement, and spins him round with a firm hand on his shoulder.  
The bloke retreats as far as he can until his back hits the wall of the building they’ve stopped outside, and raises his hands to defend his face. “Don’t hit me! Please don’t hit me!”  
“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t,” shouts Ben. “What the hell d’ya think yer doin’ round ‘ere?” He raises a fist, all the while holding the bloke by the throat, and he flinches. “Did ya learn nothin’ when they put ya inside? Soon as ya come out, you was straight into yer old tricks again.”  
Even through his anger he can see that Joseph Swann is a shadow of his former self. His hair, once so carefully styled, is lank and greasy. He’s lost weight, too, so that he looks almost gaunt. He’s no longer the swaggering arse he was when Ben interviewed him. He scrabbles weakly at the hand Ben has around his throat.  
“An’ to think I was scared of ya!” continues Ben. “Look at the state of ya! I tell ya somethin’, I’ve had an almighty row with me boyfriend this mornin’, so nothin’, NOTHIN’ you was plannin’ to do will have any effect on me. I’m that pissed off that it’d be water off a duck’s back, mate, so try yer worst.”  
“H- how is he?” asks Swann.  
His simple question stops Ben in his tracks. “What?”  
“H- how is he? Callum?”   
“He’s - ” Ben shakes his head, suddenly realising the ridiculousness of the situation. “Yer askin’ me how me boyfriend is after you’ve tried to intimidate me for the last three months? Yer havin’ a laugh, ain’t ya?”  
“I always kinda liked him,” says Swann. “He seemed like a placid, patient, kind of a bloke. I always thought we could’ve been friends if it wasn’t for the - ”. He shrugs his shoulders as much as he’s able to with Ben still holding him in a death-hold. “You know.”  
Ben stares at him in disbelief. “Seriously? You wanna be mates with me boyfriend?” He shakes his head. “Jesus wept! I KNOW it was you who was watchin’ me in that café back in September. I KNOW it’s you bin sendin’ all them messages, so I hardly think me boyfriend’s gonna wanna be pally with ya.”  
Swann is frowning now. It’s not the reaction Ben was expecting, but then nothing in this encounter has matched his expectations so far. The expression on Swann’s face seems to be stuck fast. He’s looking confused and bewildered, and a little bit unsettled.   
“What?” asks Ben.  
“I…uh…” Swann prises Ben’s fingers away from his throat, and this time Ben lets him. “I don’t want to worry you, but I think you might have a stalker. Another stalker. Two.”  
“What?” asks Ben again.  
“I didn’t come out of prison until October,” says Swann. “It wasn’t me at the café.”

Ben wanders back to the apartment a lot more slowly than he’d set off from it, his mind in a mess. He ignores the submissive look Andrew gives him as he waits for the lift, and once in his apartment, he collapses onto the leather couch next to the laptop he’d discarded earlier. He can hear that Callum’s in the shower. He suddenly feels very old and weary. Two stalkers? Why does he attract all the crazies? Why can’t one of them turn their attention to Jack Branning instead?  
He’s under no illusions that Joseph Swann has still been sending some of the messages. The bloke had as good as admitted it, but Ben’s hopeful that he might have managed to warn him off doing it again. He’d seemed a bit more rational than the last time they met. A bit more willing to listen. Ben had even found himself telling him to mind how he went as they parted company.  
Maybe both stalkers are harmless. Maybe the other one is just messing around and nothing’s going to escalate. Maybe, the bloke in the café back in September was just a fan. A fan who had a pressing engagement to get to before Ben saw him.  
Ben’s torn between feeling relief and feeling that he should still be on his guard. He rubs his face in his hands and sighs deeply, then pulls his laptop towards himself and pulls up the page he’d been working on before he stormed out. He reads over the last three paragraphs, and then stops short at the end of the third. Someone’s added something to it.  
I’m sorry. I love you.  
He smiles to himself. Maybe he was a bit harsh on Callum. He’s only got Ben’s best interests at heart, after all. He might be a pain in the arse at times, but Ben loves him, and loving him feels easier than being angry at him. He reads those five words a few more times, feeling his anger fade away, then deletes them and closes the file.   
Pulling up a holiday cottage website, he sets about booking them their Christmas break.

CALLUM  
Callum lingers a long while in the shower. There doesn’t seem much point in getting out, to be honest. He hates arguing with people, and with Ben especially. It had seemed like they were settling into an easy, loving long-term relationship, but now Phil’s come along and thrown a massive spanner in the works. Callum can almost see Ben regressing before his eyes into the closed-off, arsy little git he’d first fallen in love with. Difference being, he’d fallen in love with the possibilities. With the man he knew Ben really could be under all the layers. The man he’s become since. He’s not so sure he can stay in love with him if he starts to see that man receding again.  
He wonders if he should go and see Phil, appeal to his better nature to leave Ben alone. He’s not sure Phil has a better nature though.  
He sighs. His fingers are beginning to wrinkle from too long under the hot running water, so he switches it off and steps out into the relative chill of the bathroom. Wrapping a towel around his waist and stepping out into the hallway, he can hear that Ben’s back already. He’s surprised. He assumed he’d be out all day after the way he’d flounced off. The needy part of Callum wants to go and join him in the living room. The grown-up, sensible part, tells him he should go and get dressed and leave Ben to his own devices for a while. For once, Callum decides to be a grown-up.  
He’s rooting through the wardrobe, trying to find a clean shirt, when he hears a sound at the bedroom doorway. He turns. Ben is leaning against the doorframe looking a lot less defiant than he had when he left earlier.  
“Sorry,” he says quietly. “I mighta bin a bit of a knob.” He gestures at Callum. “You mighta bin right.”  
Callum’s not going to disagree. He gives him a sad smile.  
“You all clean from yer shower?” asks Ben.  
Callum huffs a laugh. “Yeah.”  
“Want someone to dirty ya up again?” Ben crosses the room and pulls gently at the towel around Callum’s waist.  
“Thought you was gonna be out all day,” says Callum, placing his hands over Ben’s to prevent him from removing it. “Where d’ya go?”  
Ben looks like he’s about to say something, but then Callum sees him give a tiny shake of his head. “Don’t matter,” he says. “We ain’t had ‘welcome home Callum’ sex yet, have we?” He tugs more forcefully at Callum’s towel. “That bein’ the case, I had to come home, didn’t I? Can’t leave ya feelin’ unloved.” He kisses Callum, then noses his way round to Callum’s jaw. “Cos I do love ya, Cal. An’ I’m sorry. I know you’ve got me best interests at heart.”  
“I do,” breathes Callum, his brain finding it difficult to form sentences while Ben’s doing what he’s doing. He lets Ben pull his towel away from his waist and they share one last kiss before Ben drops to his knees.  
Later, when Callum’s sprawled out across the bed and Ben’s shed his clothes too and is burrowing under his arm, Callum realises that this – what they have between them – is too good for Phil bleedin’ Mitchell to mess up. Action needs to be taken.  
“I’ve booked us a holiday cottage,” murmurs Ben. “Did it earlier.”  
“Yeah? Would’ve bin romantic,” says Callum before he can stop himself. He feels Ben stiffen beside him at the implied reference to Phil, then he relaxes again.  
“The bookin’ starts from two days before Christmas Eve. Maybe we could have our own little Christmas together before dad arrives. I’ll tell him to come Christmas Eve.”  
Callum appreciates the effort at compromise. “Thanks,” he says, kissing the top of Ben’s head. “Better start thinkin’ about yer pressie.”  
“Thought I’d just had it,” says Ben, poking at Callum’s dick with his finger. He raises himself on his elbows suddenly and peers closely at Callum.   
“Y’alright?” asks Callum. He’s suddenly realised that Ben’s seemed quite subdued since he got back from wherever he stormed off to, almost like a little bit of his light’s gone out.  
Ben doesn’t answer. Instead, he wriggles across the bed on his stomach to open the bedside drawer, and retrieves condoms and lube, which he drops on Callum’s chest and then fixes him with a beseeching look.  
“You want me to - ?”  
Ben nods, and so Callum rolls over with a grunt and starts prepping them both. After this, he’s going to go and see Phil. He’s not having anyone dim the light in his boy.

Phil’s not at home when Callum knocks smartly on the back door, but that’s OK. Callum knows how places like Albert Square work. Everyone knows everyone else. Someone’ll be able to tell him where Phil works.  
Sure enough, a blonde woman is tottering past on high heels as he steps back onto the Square, and her face wrinkles in a grimace as he mentions Phil. “At the Arches,” she says, waving a hand vaguely in the direction of the railway bridge. “He runs the garage.”  
“Cheers,” says Callum. He takes a few deep breaths as he makes his way towards the garage. He’s been in the army. He’s been a bodyguard. Phil Mitchell might scare Ben, but he does not scare him. Not in the slightest.  
The sneer that spreads across Phil’s face when he sees who it is that’s stepped inside his garage causes Callum’s heart to pump just that little bit faster. He swallows loudly. “Alright, Phil?”  
Phil is sitting at a desk in the corner of the workshop. He throws his pen down and sprawls back in his chair, staring at Callum through narrowed eyes. “Whatchoo doin’ ‘ere? You forget somethin’ last night?”  
“Nah, nah, nothin’ like that. I wanted to talk to ya.”  
There’s another seat at right angles to Phil’s, covered in papers and car parts. Phil doesn’t bother clearing it and he doesn’t invite Callum to sit down.   
“What could you possibly wanna talk to me about?” he asks slowly, folding his arms and sizing Callum up. “Ah, I know! Come to tell me to leave our Ben alone, have ya?”  
“He’s bin doin’ really well lately,” says Callum tentatively. “Since we got together he’s come out of his shell no end.” He shifts position and leans up against the door, taking strength from its solidity behind him. “When I met him he didn’t trust no one. He was miserable, closed off.”  
“Oh, so ya saved him, did ya?” asks Phil with a smirk. “You his knight in shinin’ armour, are ya?”  
“No, I ain’t sayin’ that,” says Callum, “but he was… he was damaged. He wouldn’t let no one anywhere near him, and since he’s bin back in touch with you…” He trails off, unwilling to bear the wrath of Phil if he spells out what he means. He stares down at his shoes. “I just think it’d be a lot healthier for him if ya left him alone.”  
There’s a silence. It stretches. From outside the garage he can hear footsteps and chatter as the other residents of the Square go about their daily lives. He wishes he was out there with them, walking away from this place as fast as he could. He chances a look up at Phil. The older man has his gaze fixed on him, eyes hard. Once he’s looked, it’s difficult for Callum to look away.  
As he watches, Phil’s face relaxes into a smile. He chuckles, and the chuckle turns into a guffaw. Callum still can’t look away.   
“This is killin’ ya, ain’t it?” asks Phil with tears in his eyes. “It’s killin ya that you and I both know the truth, but there ain’t a single thing you can do about it.”  
He sits forward in his chair, all humour forgotten. “I’d bet me last fiver you an’ him argued last night, didn’t ya? You givin’ it all ‘Phil’s only after you fer yer money Ben’, and Ben tellin’ ya he’s a big boy now and don’t need ya interferin’. Am I right?”  
Callum doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that that’s exactly what happened. He frowns and shakes his head, as if he can’t understand what Phil’s talking about, but that only serves to convince Phil he’s got it spot-on, if the grin that spreads across his face is anything to go by.  
“An’ the thing is, the more you tell ‘im that, the more he’s gonna argue with ya, til one day – and mark my words, that day ain’t too far away – one day, he’ll be makin’ a choice. Daddy, or you.” Phil sits back in his chair again. “You wanna take bets on who he’ll choose, eh Callum? Cos I reckon it’d be too close to call right now. One thing ya should know about us Mitchells, though. Blood is always thicker than water.”  
Callum stares at him in horror at his callous cynicism.  
“Shall I let ya into a little secret, Callum?” asks Phil. He waits for a response, but when there is none, carries on regardless. “You’re right.”  
“What?” Callum frowns. “What am I right about?”  
Phil shrugs. “I am after his money, but you can tell ‘im that till the cows come home. He won’t believe ya.”  
Callum feels all the breath leave his lungs at Phil’s admission. “He will!”  
“Nah, nah. He’s waited so long for a crumb of approval from daddy, he’ll jump through as many hoops as I want ‘im to. An’ anyone who tells tales; tries to destroy the newly-found trust he’s got in me, well, they’ll be the ones he jettisons. Not. Me.”  
Phil stares at him again, his face blank.  
“Yer wrong,” says Callum, his voice weak. “He trusts me, not you.”  
“He might trust ya, Callum, but he’s scared of me. He’d do anythin’ to get in me good books. So, if I start droppin’ hints that yer tryin’ to come between us, tryin’ to spoil our heart-warming father-son reunion…”  
Phil trails off, knowing that he doesn’t need to finish the sentence. Knowing, too, that he’s right. Callum’s already heard something similar from Ben.   
“I ain’t gonna ask Ben for money,” carries on Phil. “I won’t need to. I just gotta make meself indispensable to him.”  
“An’ how ya gonna do that?” asks Callum.  
Phil taps the side of his nose. “Wait an’ see. Watch an’ learn, young Callum. Oh, and I’d advise ya not to breathe a word of this conversation to Ben, cos he won’t believe ya. An’ that’d be the best-case scenario.”  
Callum bristles at the man’s infuriating certainty. “Oh yeah? An’ what’d be the worst?”  
Phil shrugs and smiles cheerily. “What’s yer back-up plan, eh? Who’s sofa ya gonna kip on when he throws you out?”   
He stands up, ready to usher Callum out of the garage. At his movement, Callum suddenly finds a voice for his anger. He points a finger at Phil. “You are a nasty piece of work who don’t deserve a son like Ben. An’ I’m tellin’ ya, I don’t want you spendin’ Christmas with us, so you call ‘im and you give ‘im an excuse! Say somethin’s come up an’ you can’t make it.”  
“Goodbye, Callum,” says Phil, advancing on him. “Watch yer back, wontcha?”

Callum can’t go home straight away. He needs to walk off the horror and the anger Phil’s left him with. The man is totally without a conscience, and Callum’s beginning to think that the description of him in Ben’s books only hints at half the things he probably got up to when Ben was a kid. It’s a wonder Ben got out at all.  
He takes the tube a couple of stops to the river and walks back alongside it to the apartment, his route taking nearly an hour. It’s freezing cold and everyone around him is rushing to get out of the biting wind, but he dawdles, staring at the ground in front of his feet and trying to make sense of Phil Mitchell, stopping short every now and again when some new aspect of the horror hits him all over again. He feels like he’s been in the presence of true evil, for the first time in his life, and it makes his insides curdle and his body shudder. Ben… Ben thinks that man he left back there in Walford is wanting to reconcile with him. His hopeful optimism makes Callum want to cry, but Phil was right. However Callum tries to warn Ben, he won’t be believed. Ben wants to believe that his dad’s turned over a new leaf, that he’s proud of him. The realisation makes Callum’s heart ache. Maybe all he can do is be there for him when the time comes to pick up the pieces.  
By the time he gets back, Ben is clattering around in the kitchen, unwrapping food from containers. He smiles cheerily at Callum. “Just in time, babe. I ordered Chinese. Got all yer favourites.”  
Callum leans against the closed lift door and watches him looking so relaxed and happy again, and his heart breaks. “That - ” He clears his throat. “That’s great Ben.”  
“You alright?” Ben is staring at him quizzically. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” He expression changes. “He ain’t bin out there, has he? The stalker?”  
“Nah, nah. Course not. I just went for a walk along the river. Bit cold.” Callum tries for a smile.  
“Well get over here an’ I’ll warm ya up.”  
Callum crosses to the kitchen and takes Ben in his arms. “I do love you, ya know.”  
“I know,” says Ben. “We’re alright now, ain’t we?”  
“Yeah, course.” Callum buries his face in Ben’s hair. “I will always be here for ya, Ben. I’ll always look after ya. You know that, don’t ya?” He pulls Ben in as close as he can get, squeezing him in his arms.  
“Yer bein’ weird,” says Ben in answer, his voice muffled against Callum’s chest. “An’ the chicken chow mein’s gettin’ cold.”  
“Yeah, OK,” says Callum.

CALLUM  
The light’s beginning to fade as Callum manoeuvres the hire car around the diminishingly narrow Cornish lanes. He peers out of the windscreen, straining his eyes for the sign that indicates they need to turn left towards the sea.  
Ben’s been quiet for much of the drive. Whenever Callum glances over at him, he seems preoccupied. Probably working out a plot point in the latest novel, thinks Callum. As the car makes slow progress along a winding lane, Ben shifts around and casts a critical eye over the back seat. “I hope we bought enough food.”  
“Babe,” says Callum with a laugh, “Penzance Tesco couldn’t believe their luck when we turned up. I bet their Christmas profits’ll be three times the usual figure thanks to us.   
“I ain’t done any grocery shoppin’ for years,” says Ben. “Always have everythin’ delivered, don’t I? Those bleedin’ trolleys, never go in a straight line, do they?”  
“That’s why yer lucky you got me, ain’ it?” says Callum. “Stopped ya gettin’ in a fight with that posh old bird. Ah!”   
He spots the sign he was looking for and steps hard on the brake, then turns off. The lane they’re in now is even narrower than the one they’ve been following for the last twelve miles. High hedgerows bank on either side, the grey winter sky just visible above them. It looks like the lane itself is rarely used, a strip of grass growing along the middle of it indicating that it’s barely more than a farm track. Callum makes religious note of any passing places. The last thing he wants is to meet a tractor coming in the opposite direction.  
“I wonder if me dad’ll like what I bought him,” ponders Ben. The car boot is chock-full of their cases and the presents they’d brought. “You don’t think he’ll think I’m showin’ off, do ya? Splashin’ the cash. I mean, he might think it’s a bit extravagant.”  
“I’m sure he’ll love it, babe,” says Callum, feeling the ache in his heart that’s become customary these last couple of weeks. “Should think it’d be difficult to tell, though, with that face of his.”  
Ben had asked him a few days ago why he was being so nice about Phil every time the bloke was mentioned, so since then Callum’s tried to mix it up with a bit of the good-natured ribbing he knows Ben expects of him. Every time he does, it hurts him just a little bit more.  
“He didn’t reply,” says Ben. “When I told him we’d be expectin’ him lunchtime Christmas Eve. You think he got the message?”  
“Hope so,” says Callum, meaning something completely different to Ben. “What ya got me for Christmas?”  
“Ain’t tellin’.”  
“Spoilsport.”  
Ben chuckles, and smoothes his hand over Callum’s thigh. “You are such a big kid.”  
Callum chances a quick glance at him. “You ain’t no better! I know you bin rummagin’ in those bags that were in the wardrobe. Lucky I wrapped me presents up before you got to ‘em, cos I know you too well, Ben Mitchell.” He turns his eyes back to the road and quickly pulls the steering wheel to the right to prevent them mounting the bank.  
“Concentrate on the road, babe,” murmurs Ben.  
“Can’t. Not with yer hand on me leg.”  
“Bit remote around here, ain’t it?” asks Ben, his hand creeping further up Callum’s thigh. “All the better for me to have me wicked way with ya. No one around to hear ya scream.”  
“Is this place really on a clifftop?” asks Callum.  
“Yep, massive picture windows lookin’ right out over the sea. The woman who owns it said she’s put a Christmas tree in there, and the log fire’ll be roarin’ when we get there. Bliss!”  
“Sounds lovely,” says Callum, blotting out the voice in his head that’s telling him being on a cliff in the company of Phil Mitchell is probably not a good idea. “Glad we’ve got it to ourselves tonight and tomorrow.”  
“Yeah,” says Ben quietly. Callum wonders if he’s regretting inviting Phil. He’s still convinced the bloke will turn up. He’s not naïve enough to imagine that his little warning would have put him off. Funny, though, that Phil hasn’t replied to Ben’s message.

The sea is stormy when they arrive at the cottage, the track bending round to the right just before they get to it so that it suddenly appears without warning, the sea roiling beyond it. When they get out, the sounds of the waves crashing onto the rocks below fill the air, along with harsh cries from the seagulls that wheel in the sky above them. After some assessment of the best thing to do, Callum parks the car in front of a stone-built shelter that’s too full of old fishing tackle, nets and lengths of rope to accommodate it. The wind whips at their hair and bites at their cheeks as they locate the key to the front door of the house under a pot plant on the second step from the bottom of the garden path and start unloading the car.  
“Let’s just pile it all up in the lobby, then you can carry me over the threshold,” says Ben, his words being blown away as soon as they leave his mouth.   
“Oh yeah? Why ain’t it you carryin’ me?” asks Callum, standing by the car and stretching every muscle after the long drive.  
“Cos I’d need a crane, babe,” says Ben. Callum swipes him round the head for his cheek and starts gathering up the grocery bags from the back seat. He pauses before he begins the trip down to the cottage, gazing out over the sea. There’s a lighthouse far away to the right, its beam appearing every second or so. Must be rocks just below the surface of the water all the way along here. A treacherous coastline. He shudders, thinking he wouldn’t want to be out here after dark. The light’s almost faded already, and the coastal path that leads around the headland just below the cottage is already cloaked in gloom. Once false step and – goodbye world, hello murky depths.  
“When yer ready, babe,” says Ben, passing him on his second trip to the car.  
“Comin’,” says Callum, turning his back on the sea. As he makes his way down the garden path, thankful that his route is illuminated by pillar lights all the way down, he realises that theirs is the only dwelling within at least a mile. A couple of lights at the top of the headland a good distance away might be their nearest neighbours. They’re certainly going to have a secluded week. He hurries on his way, keen to make the most of an evening in front of a roaring log fire with the man he loves.

“S beautiful, ain’t it?” asks Ben as he gazes out over the seascape the next morning, a blanket pulled tight around his shoulders.  
“It is,” says Callum, from where he’s kneeling on the living room floor, wrangling with the log burner to get it re-lit. They’ve just emerged from under the piles of blankets and rugs on their bed and the place is freezing. “You gonna get us some brekkie while I do this?”  
“Yes, oh lord and master,” says Ben, turning from the window and crossing to the kitchen. “I was right though, weren’t I?”  
“What about?” calls Callum, watching as a firelighter catches the flame from the cigarette lighter he’s holding against it. He hears Ben filling the kettle and setting it to boil.  
“There ain’t nobody to hear ya scream out here,” calls Ben. “And blimey did ya scream last night!”  
“Not my fault,” says Callum, piling logs around the fire lighter. “Not when ya do that thing ya do. You know it drives me wild.”  
Ben appears at his shoulder and clasps his hands around his waist. “S why I do it, babe.”   
The flames begin licking at the logs and Callum watches them with a feeling of immense satisfaction, akin to what he imagines cavemen must have felt when they first discovered fire. He turns to take Ben in his arms. “We’re alright, me ‘n’ you, ain’t we?”  
“Course,” says Ben. “Never happier.”  
Callum buries his face in Ben’s hair and inhales his favourite scent in the world. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “Never happier.”  
They huddle in front of the log burner to breakfast on croissants warm from the oven and orange juice and coffee, and waste half an hour afterwards making out on the fireside rug, before Ben decides it’s high time they went on a hike around the coastline.  
“We can take some lunch with us, go for a really long walk.”  
He’s like a little kid at the seaside. Seeing his enthusiasm makes Callum smile. “Anything ya want, babe,” he says.  
“No writing to do; no business calls – I doubt I could even get a signal here,” says Ben, checking his phone and waving it at Callum in confirmation. “And no stalkers!”  
“Nope. Just you and me and the sea,” says Callum.

“I should buy a holiday home down ‘ere,” muses Ben as they set out half an hour later, Callum carrying a rucksack full of goodies and tea in a thermos borrowed from the cottage, and the coast path glistening ahead of them in the weak December sunlight. “Wouldn’t it be great, to escape down here every time the world got a bit too mad? Good way of off-settin’ some tax on me earnin’s, too. I could say it was a second writin’ office.”  
“Be lovely, babe,” says Callum, appreciating the gentle breeze on his skin now that last night’s storm has died down. “Not sure the locals’d appreciate ya buying up a property their kids mighta bought though.”  
Ben makes a dismissive noise. “First-time buyers wouldn’t be able to afford the kind of property I’d buy.” He looks sideways at Callum, and Callum can see that he’s mulling something over in his mind.  
“Whatcha plottin’?” he asks.  
Ben shrugs. “Somethin’ and nothin’. Wait an’ see.” He grins at Callum. “Happy Christmas, babe.”  
“Not Christmas yet,” points out Callum.  
Ben lengthens his stride and pulls away from him as the path starts to rise. “Detail,” he calls back over his shoulder. Callum watches him go, thinking that he’s been in a funny mood for a while now. Ever since the day they argued; ever since he, Callum, went to see Phil. 

Callum doesn’t think he’s felt so sleepy and content in his life as he does that evening, when they’re propping each other up on the couch in the light of the fire and the Christmas tree. It’s only early, not much past eight o’clock, but they’d walked for miles around the coast and returned just as the light was beginning to fade again. Since then, they’ve dined on cold meats and pickles washed down with beer, and the combination of the alcohol and the fresh air have conspired to make Callum drowsy. They’ve spent the evening chatting lazily as the radio plays quietly in the background. There’s some big band show on, and the station keeps going in and out of tune, bursts of static obscuring a singer he thinks might be Ella Fitzgerald every now and again, but he’s too cosy under the blanket they’d brought in from the bedroom to go and tune it in better, and the feel of Ben’s warm limbs tangled with his own isn’t helping him to stay awake.   
The curtains are still open. Being this far away from any other houses means they don’t need to guard their privacy, and through the picture window he can see the lights of a ship blinking out on the dark horizon. He wonders if the people on it will make it to their homes for Christmas. Sentimental with beer and a feeling that all’s right with the world, he hopes they do. At the moment he’s perfectly happy to confer peace and goodwill on all men.  
Almost all men.  
“Pity me dad’s comin’ tomorrow really, ain’t it?” says Ben.  
Callum grunts non-commitally, suspicious of walking into a trap.   
“Me ‘n’ you here, like this. S’ perfect.” Callum can tell that Ben’s almost asleep too by the way his words are slightly slurred.  
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “Never better.”  
Suddenly, Ben sits upright and twists to look down at him. “We should do our pressies tonight, just the two of us.”  
“Yeah?” asks Callum. “It ain’t really Christmas. Ain’t that bad luck or somethin’?”  
“Nah. I just want us to have a little moment of our own.”   
Ben looks enquiringly at him, and seeing no objection in his expression, leaps up and heads to the bedroom to fetch the two piles of presents that had been safely stored at the bottom of the bed when they arrived. Twice, Callum had caught him peering at the pile Callum had left for him, and he grins to himself, certain that Ben’s just run out of patience and can’t wait to open everything.  
“You are such a little kid,” he says, when Ben returns laden down with brightly-wrapped packages.  
Over the years they’ve been together they’ve agreed upon an approach for presents that makes Callum feel a bit better about the wide discrepancy in their pay packets: a maximum amount to spend, and an emphasis on little things that they wouldn’t think to buy themselves. Otherwise, what would Callum buy the man who’s already got everything – or can buy it himself if he doesn’t?  
Fifteen minutes later, they’re surrounded by unwrapped presents. Aftershave, clothes, digital games - and a baking book for Ben, which he seizes upon with glee, already planning which cakes he’s going to bake first. At least, Callum thinks, he’ll have a topic of conversation to share with Stella Heath when he next sees her at a literature festival, provided her mouth isn’t otherwise engaged. He stands up and begins collecting all the discarded wrapping paper.  
“Babe, sit down a sec,” says Ben. He sounds nervous.  
Callum turns and sees that he’s holding an envelope. He sits down obediently. “What’s this?”  
“There’s just one more thing,” says Ben, avoiding his gaze. There’s a faint blush on his face. “I know we always say we won’t spend much, but I really wanted to do this for ya.”  
He hands the envelope to Callum and pulls his knees up to his chest as he watches him inspect it.  
Callum’s name is printed on the front in biro. He squeezes the envelope but it’s feather-thin, not even a card inside. With a frown at Ben, Callum rips it open and pulls out a single sheet of note paper covered in Ben’s spidery handwriting. His eyes widen as he reads the words on it, and he stares up at Ben again with shock on his face. He shakes his head. “You can’t do this, Ben. It’s too much!”  
“I can,” says Ben firmly. “I can, and I have. An’ I ain’t gonna argue with ya over this, Callum.”  
Callum looks back down at the note and reads it again. 

Callum,  
I never thought I’d find someone of my own to share life with. To be honest, I never thought it’d be you, either, when you first showed up late to your interview and called me by the wrong name (joke!), but the last few years have been the best of my life. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking recently. I love you, and I trust you (not something I can say to many people!), and I want to give you something that represents only a fraction of what you’ve given me, because what you’ve given me is priceless.  
I know you always say you aren’t with me for my money, and I know that’s true, but I want you to accept this gift.  
I’m going to buy you a holiday home to a maximum value of £750,000. It can be in Cornwall if that’s what you want, but it’s your choice. Have a think about where you’d like it to be; look at some property websites, and we’ll go house-hunting after Christmas.  
All my love,  
B  
x

“Honestly, Ben, this is too much!” repeats Callum.  
“It ain’t,” says Ben. “I’ve done some sums an’ I can afford it, easy. I ain’t tryin’ to buy yer affection, cos I know I don’t need to, but I want ya to accept it.” He adopts a warning look as Callum starts to object again. “I’ll be really offended if ya don’t, Cal.”  
Callum sees that it’s useless to argue any further. He wraps his arms tight around Ben. “OK, well I don’t wanna offend ya, do I? Thank you. It’s an amazin’ present. Too much, but amazin’. Thank you.”  
“I can offset it against me tax bill,” says Ben, “so it maybe ain’t as romantic as it first looks, but I do love ya, Cal, and I wanna show you.”  
“You already do,” says Callum, pulling back to look him in the eye. “D’ya know how I know ya love me?”  
Ben shakes his head.  
“I know, cos ya let me talk ya down when yer goin’ off on one. You don’t allow anyone else in the world to tell ya when yer bein’ a twat, an’ if that ain’t love, I don’t know what is.”  
Ben grins. “True. Glad ya recognise it.”

“He ain’t comin’, is he?” asks Ben, pacing the living room. It’s past three o’clock on Christmas Eve, and there’s no sign of Phil. From his seat on the couch Callum watches him pace and is torn between relief and guilt that his attempt to warn the bloke off seems to have worked, more so guilt following Ben’s staggeringly generous gift to him. He knows he’s going to have to tell Ben that he’s the reason Phil is a no-show.   
He opens his mouth, and then thinks better of it. He can’t do it. “He might be caught up,” he says instead. “Traffic’s probably murder today. He’ll be stuck in a jam somewhere on the M5.”  
“Then why ain’t he called?” asks Ben.  
Callum picks up Ben’s phone from where he’d left it on the arm of the couch and waves it at him. “No signal, babe.”  
“Right, let’s go out until we find one,” says Ben, crossing to the lobby where their coats and boots have been left. “C’mon.”  
They stride up to the road and then follow it a short distance until Ben sees that he has one bar on his phone. “Signal!” he announces, stopping to peer at his screen while a backlog of emails and texts pops up. Callum, staring out over the sea, hears him curse, and turns round to see him waving his phone in the air, desperately seeking to reinstate the one single bar. He peers at the screen again and makes a sound of approval when it reappears. After a pause, he says, “No message from me dad, though.”  
Callum can’t bear to see the look of disappointment on his face. “He’s probably on the move,” he says, astounded at how easily the lies come to him. “Probably too close to bother. If he stopped to call now he’d just lose more time.” He clears his throat, feeling like the worst boyfriend in the world. “Listen, babe. Your present. It was so generous, but I don’t deserve it. I can’t accept it.”  
Ben has started walking back towards the cottage. “Can’t hear ya,” he calls over his shoulder.

“We can’t wait for him any longer,” Callum says later that evening. “We should eat or all this food’ll go to waste.”  
He surveys the spread that Ben’s laid out on the kitchen table, his heart breaking just a little bit more at the way Ben had clearly wanted to impress his dad.  
“Yeah, I guess yer right,” says Ben with a sigh. “Nothin’ ever goes how ya plan it, does it? I just wanted him to see what he’d missed.”  
Callum frowns, not knowing exactly what Ben means. He wants to give him a big hug, but he knows from experience that when Ben’s feeling vulnerable he has a tendency to lash out, with words if nothing else. Instead, he takes a seat at the table. “Looks amazin’, babe.”  
They eat in silence, Callum darting glances at Ben, and Ben darting glances at the door. Suddenly, car lights wash over the window and Ben jumps up with a grin. “He’s here! That must be his car!”  
He goes out to the door, leaving Callum feeling even worse than he had when he thought the problem was that he’d just warned Phil off behind Ben’s back. What’s the betting Phil will work that into the conversation somehow?   
The open door is letting in the cold. He hears a car door slam, and conversation between Ben and Phil, Phil’s voice low and his answers short, compared with Ben’s excited chatter.  
“What a bleedin’ place to find!” exclaims Phil as he comes into the kitchen carrying an overnight bag. He acknowledges Callum with the briefest of nods and a triumphant gleam in his eye, and turns back to Ben. “Why on earth d’ya pick somewhere so remote?”   
Ben shrugs. Callum knows why. It’s because Ben would have thought it romantic, not that he’ll share that with his dad if he’s got any sense.  
“Sit down, dad,” says Ben. “We made a start cos we didn’t know what time you’d get here. Help yerself.”  
“First things first,” says Phil, opening up his bag and rummaging around to pull out presents. He hands a well-wrapped gift to Ben, and then plonks a bottle of cheap red wine, unwrapped, on the table in front of Callum. “S’alright,” he says. “I ain’t laced it with arsenic.” He grins obnoxiously at Callum. Now that he’s here, it feels to Callum like he’s taking up the whole room, changing the atmosphere.  
“Thanks, dad,” says Ben, prodding at the gift.  
“I wouldn’t get too excited if I were you,” says Phil, turning to face him. “It’s more symbolic value than anythin’. I mean, I can’t compete with you an’ yer money, can I? Not even gonna try.”  
“You get lost, did ya Phil?” asks Callum, trying not to grind his teeth at Phil’s mention of Ben’s wealth.   
“Nah,” says Phil blithely, not bothering to look at him. “Go on then son, open yer present.”  
Ben does as he’s told, darting little glances up at Phil as he wrestles with the wrapping paper. He uncovers a plain cardboard box, and from it pulls a tarnished sports trophy. He looks up again at Phil, mystified.  
“S me old boxin’ trophy,” says Phil. “Like I said, it’s more symbolic than anythin’. I won that by makin’ me dad proud of me, an’ I wanna pass it on to ya. You’ve fought to get where ya are, Ben, and that makes yer old dad very proud.”  
Looking at him, Callum can’t decipher the look on Ben’s face. He glances at Callum and back to Phil again, and smiles uncertainly, then he stands up. “Thanks dad. I’m just gonna go and - ”  
He gestures behind himself and heads for the bedroom, leaving Callum to glare at Phil.  
“Very touchin’,” he hisses. “Sentimental rubbish, when we both know the real reason yer here, don’t we, Phil?”  
Phil shrugs, helping himself to food from several of the serving dishes on the table. “Whatever, he lapped it up, didn’t he? And you - ” he swivels round to face Callum, his voice taking on a harder edge. “Don’t ever think ya can warn me off. D’ya really think I’d take any notice of ya?”  
Ben returns with his present for Phil, and Phil weighs it up in his hands before unwrapping it. “Feels like a bottle of somethin’,” he announces. He stares in admiration at the expensive and very old bottle of whisky he unwraps, whistling between his teeth. “This musta cost you a fortune, son. Still, plenty more where that came from I expect, ain’t there?”

Three hours later, Callum’s ready to bang his head against the wall. The contrast between this evening and the previous one couldn’t be more obvious. Gone is the soft, relaxed Ben. Instead, Ben seems like he’s on his best behaviour, and the conversation flows over Callum’s head without any participation from him. Ben is a different person when his dad’s around.   
Callum stares out of the window towards the sea, practically invisible in the dark. The ship is no longer on the horizon, but the lighthouse beam sweeps across the waves with a regularity that lulls Callum as he tunes out Phil. He sees movement just beyond the window, and squints hard, thinking his eyes are playing tricks on him.   
There’s nothing.  
It must have been a branch, swaying in the wind, or maybe the reflection of movement within the room. He tries to focus back on the conversation between Ben and Phil, but finds his eyes being drawn back to the window. This time his heart leaps.  
Someone is staring in at them.   
Callum starts out of his seat, his sudden movement causing Ben to stop in mid-sentence and gaze up at him. “You alright, babe?”  
“There’s someone out there!”  
They all hold their breaths, listening hard for any movement, and under the sound of the wind whistling intermittently around the cottage gables, they hear footsteps rounding the corner of the building and stopping outside the front door.  
“Might be the owner, come to wish us a happy Christmas,” says Ben in a quiet voice. They all start violently as there’s a sudden violent banging on the door. “Or maybe not.”  
“I’ll go,” says Phil.  
Callum steps in front of him before he can rise from his chair. “I’ll go. Stay here, Ben. Don’t come anywhere near the door.”  
There’s no security chain on the door. Callum plants his foot in front of it before he inches it open and peers round it, feeling the cold night wind blast him through the gap as it widens slowly.  
Suddenly, it swings towards him with the force of someone charging at it, and he’s nearly knocked off his feet.  
“Don’t try and run, and don’t call for help!”  
Callum rubs his forehead where a bruise is already forming, and looks down the blade of a knife that’s perilously close to his nose.  
“Turn around. Walk ahead of me back into the living room, and don’t tip anyone off.”  
Callum does as he’s told, the tip of the knife digging into the small of his back. He makes eye contact with Ben as he re-enters the room, and sees his eyes widen as he works out what’s happening.  
“Not you again!” exclaims Ben. “I thought I’d warned ya off.”  
Joseph Swann pushes Callum ahead of himself and shakes his head. “Too much at stake.” He indicates that Callum should sit back down, and Callum does as he’s told.  
“There ain’t nothin’ at stake,” scoffs Ben. “You wrote a useless novel that was never gonna get published and went to prison. Not for the standard of the novel, although that shoulda been grounds enough if you ask me.”  
“Ben,” warns Callum. The last thing they want to do is provoke the bloke.   
“I’ve got a gun too,” says Swann, patting the pocket of his jacket. “Don’t any of you try anything stupid.”  
Phil is looking from one to the other of them as they speak, his eyebrows up near where his hair would be if he had any. “Is this the bloke that made yer life a misery?”  
“Yup,” says Callum tersely.  
Phil scratches at his scruffy beard. “An’ ya let him?” He stands up abruptly, causing Swann to dive towards Ben.   
“Don’t come any nearer or I’ll kill him!”  
“Nah, you won’t son,” says Phil, advancing on him.   
Swann swipes at him with the knife, barely missing his stomach, and Phil backs off immediately with his hands raised. “OK, OK.”  
“Sit on the couch, all of you!” commands Swann. “Stay together where I can keep an eye on you all.”  
Callum can feel his breath coming in shallow gasps. He places an anchoring hand on Ben’s leg when he sits beside him, but something’s wrong. Ben doesn’t seem anxious or frightened at all. He’s obviously putting on a show of bravery for his dad. Callum curses the toxic masculinity that makes him feel he needs to. If Swann can’t see that he’s having the effect he desires, he’ll up the ante, and if that happens, there’s no telling what stupid heroics Ben might try. For the first time, he curses Ben for choosing a holiday cottage that’s miles from anywhere with no phone reception. He can’t see how they’re getting out of this alive.  
“What d’ya want, son?” asks Phil of Swann.  
Swann glances across at him. “Revenge.” Callum sees his eyes dip to the floor, the action at odds with his defiant tone.  
Ben chuckles. “Very dramatic.”  
“Ben!” warns Callum.  
“Ain’t ya wonderin’ who that bloke is?” asks Ben of Swann.   
“An’ how did ya track us down?” asks Callum.  
Swann seems more confident when he answers him. “The same way I managed to follow you around before, when you didn’t even notice me.”  
“Sorry,” says Ben. “I’ll ask ya again. Ain’t ya wonderin’ who that bloke is?”  
Swann transfers his gaze across to him, and gives a little shrug. “Yes, of course.”  
“You would probably’ve come here thinkin’ you was just gonna find Callum an’ me, wouldn’t ya?” asks Ben. “An’ instead there’s this bloke who you’ve never met before, and you don’t even ask him his name.”  
“This is hardly relevant right now, Ben,” says Callum, keeping a close eye on the blade Swann’s still waving around.  
“OK, since we’re keepin’ the small talk goin’,” continues Ben, sitting back and folding his arms. “I went to a nice little café along by the river in September. Outdoors, does really good coffee and walnut cake. D’ya know it, dad?”  
Phil shifts awkwardly on the other side of Callum. “Whatcha talkin’ about?”  
Ben leans forward so he can make eye contact with his dad. He watches him carefully for a few seconds, and then Callum sees a grim smile spread across his face. He sits back again, and there’s silence in the room.  
“Well?” asks Phil, spreading his hands and aiming his question at Swann.  
“I’m gonna kill you all,” says Swann, raising his voice to a dramatic pitch again. “Startin’ with you.” He jabs his knife at Callum, and Callum shrinks back. “Then you Phil, and then, when I’ve made you watch them die, I’m gonna slit your throat Ben Mitchell, and watch you bleed out on this carpet.”  
“Oh for fuck’s sake!” exclaims Phil.   
At the sound of his voice, Swann darts a frightened glance in his direction. Phil stands up and advances on him.  
“Careful, Phil!” shouts Callum, scared that Swann will make a sudden lunge at Ben.   
Instead, he starts backing away as Phil advances on him again, backing towards the door.

“Looks like I didn’t need to make any introductions after all,” comments Ben, standing up too.

“What?” asks Callum.

At Ben’s sudden movement, Swann makes a break for the door and Phil lumbers after him.  
“What the hell is goin’ on?” asks Callum, wondering just how strong the beer was that he’s been drinking all evening.

“They already know each other, Callum,” says Ben in a dry voice. “Keep up!” He peers out of the window. “We’d better go after him. Me dad’ll kill him.”

“What?” asks Callum. “Now we’re suddenly tryin’ to save the life of the bloke who was about to kill ya?”

“Just go, Callum,” urges Ben, ushering him towards the door. “I’ll explain later.”

Once outside, they see that Phil is chasing Swann up the coast path, the moonlight illuminating their movement more than their features. Ben dips back inside the cottage to grab a torch that’s hanging next to their coats, and they set off in pursuit. Callum’s legs are longer and he starts making good ground on them. His brain is still trying to make sense of what’s happening, but he knows how to run. He decides to focus on that for now.  
When he reaches them, they’re tussling, rolling over and over on the wet grass. He staggers, winded after the run, and pitches in to try and separate them. Once more the wind is whipping around his face and tearing at his hair. Below, the waves crash once more on the rocks. He’s forced backwards by a flailing fist making contact with his mouth, and watches as they fight, rolling perilously close to the cliff edge.  
“I didn’t wanna do it anyway!” yells Swann. His words are cut off by a punch to his stomach from Phil. He struggles, getting the upper hand for just a second before they’re rolling over again. He comes up on top again and manages to stagger to his feet. Just as Ben draws level with them all, panting hard, Phil pulls himself up to his feet too and makes a lumbering charge at Swann. Swann sidesteps nimbly, and the momentum is too much for Phil to stop himself. He disappears over the side of the cliff with a bloodcurdling yell.

Suddenly, it’s as if time stops. All three of them stare at each other. Swann is the first to move. He spots the knife on the grass, glinting in the moonlight, and bends to pick it up. With a long look at Ben, he pulls his arm back as far as it will go and throws it out over the cliff-edge, to be claimed by the waves below.  
“And the gun,” says Callum, when he can find his voice.   
Swann shakes his head. “There was no gun.”  
He allows Callum to go over to him and gingerly pat him down. No gun.  
“Why d’ya do it?” asks Ben, in a broken voice.  
Swann shrugs. “He was gonna pay me. And I was scared of him. You think I’m a psycho? I’ve got nothing on him.”  
Ben huffs out a humourless laugh. “Nah, yer right.”  
They stare at each other, only now realising that the night is freezing cold, and then turn to follow the path back down to the cottage.   
“Wait!” says Callum. “I heard somethin’.”  
They turn back to the cliff, and listen carefully. Above the sounds of the waves and the moaning wind, and the occasional seagull, they hear a cry.  
“Help!”  
Ben glances at Callum and inches closer to the edge. Callum keeps a close eye on Swann, just in case he decides to try anything, but he raises his hands in surrender and props himself up against a boulder on the side of the path.  
Ben shines the torch down the side of the cliff as Callum draws level with him, and they both peer over. The torchlight sweeps across the rocks below, and suddenly, they see Phil on a ledge about thirty feet down.  
“Help me, son!”  
“It was you, weren’t it?” asks Ben, shining the torch right in his face. “You were the second stalker, weren’t ya?”  
Callum glances at him. This evening is getting more and more out of his control. Second stalker?  
Phil holds up a hand to shield his eyes from the light.  
“Matey here weren’t even out of prison when them first messages come through, and he certainly weren’t at that café back in September. It was you, weren’t it, dad? What d’ya do? Follow me home that day?”  
Phil is silent.   
“You’d better start talkin’ dad, or I’m leavin’ ya there for the sea,” shouts Ben.  
“Yeah!” bellows Phil. “Happy now? It was me! It was pure chance I saw ya there that day. I only roped that drippy little idiot in cos I wanted ya to think he was up to his old tricks again.”  
“But how d’ya get in touch with him?” asks Callum, still feeling like he’s playing catch-up.  
“I’ve got mates in prison,” shouts Phil. “I just had to do a bit of askin’ around. Son, the waves is risin’. I’m gonna get washed off this rock soon if you don’t help me!”  
“So, you was gonna save me from matey here, was ya?” asks Ben. “Ya had it all set up, didn’t ya? The only thing I don’t understand is why. Why d’ya do it all, dad?”  
Ben peers intently down at Phil.  
“He wanted yer money, Ben,” says Callum sorrowfully. “He admitted it to me.”  
“Is that right?” asks Ben. “You wanted me money? You thought I was gonna be so grateful I’d give you a share? See, that’s the only reason I could come up with, but I wouldn’t allow meself to believe it. I thought, nah, he wouldn’t be that callous.”  
There’s silence from down below.   
“You feelin’ them waves lappin’ round yer ankles yet dad?”  
“Yeah! I did it cos I thought you’d reward me. I wanted yer money. Ya didn’t believe all that guff about me bein’ proud of ya, did ya?”  
Callum watches Ben stare down at his dad. His hair is plastered to his forehead and his expression is grim, his face pale as the moonlight. He stares. Then he puts the torch on the ground and turns and begins walking away, back to the cottage.  
“Son! Son” Don’t leave me’ere!”  
“I ain’t your son,” shouts Ben over his shoulder. “I’m me own man.”  
Swann exchanges a glance with Callum from where he’s still leaning against the boulder. He looks exhausted and shocked.   
“And you thought you was the nutter, did ya?” asks Callum. He peers back over the cliff, directing the torch’s beam to pick out Phil. He can see that the waves are spraying up over him every so often. Phil is cowering on the ledge, trying to shield himself from the freezing water.  
“Callum!” he calls. “Please don’t leave me here!”  
“That man,” shouts Callum, pointing after Ben and trying hard to make his voice heard over the raging sea. “That man is the most beautiful man in the world, and you will never, NEVER, dim his light. You hear me? He’s the man he is in spite of ya, Phil Mitchell, and he don’t need ya.”  
He turns and makes his way away from the edge, following in Ben’s footsteps.   
“Callum!” roars Phil. “Don’t ya dare leave me down here!”

Swann is still leaning against the boulder looking cold and dazed when Callum goes back down the coastpath with a length of rope from the stone shelter back at the cottage. He helps him to tie it around the boulder and gives it a sharp tug to make sure it won’t come free, then Callum lowers it over the cliff for Phil.   
“Tie it round yer waist,” he shouts. “Then pull yer way up.”  
He’s not going to help. He’s done as much as he’s prepared to do now, and whether or not Phil makes it is in the lap of the gods. He reckons without desperation, though. Phil fights and scrambles his way up, pulling himself over onto the top of the cliff eventually and lying panting, all the fight gone from him. He looks pathetic.

Christmas Day  
“Happy Christmas, babe,” says Ben as they collapse onto the couch back at the cottage.  
Callum looks at his watch. It’s twenty past five in the morning, Christmas Day. He’d driven Phil in his car to the nearest hospital in Truro and left him there (without paying for parking, so that’ll be a nice surprise for the bloke when he gets out) while Ben travelled behind in the hire car with Swann, who he’d dropped off at the train station. It was closed for Christmas, but Ben had left him with a wad of notes so that he could search around for a hotel room. “He can always find a stable if there ain’t no rooms,” Ben had said. “Proper Christmassy. Oh! And I give him Jack Brannin’s number, thought Jack might be able to help him with that bleedin’ awful novel of his.”  
“You never!” says Callum.  
Finally, they’re alone again. Dawn is brightening the horizon out over the sea. Callum stares wearily around the room and his gaze alights on the bottle of whisky Ben had bought for Phil. He picks it up and asks a silent question of Ben. At Ben’s nod, he screws off the cap and takes a long swig, then passes it across for Ben to do the same.  
“You OK?” he asks.  
“Will be,” says Ben, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I don’t think I ever really believed he’d changed. Not really. Every time we got together though, he kept goin’ on about me stalker. Almost as if he wanted to keep it all fresh in me mind.”  
“Well, I’m sorry anyway,” says Callum.  
“You tried to tell me, didn’t ya?” asks Ben. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe ya.”  
“Don’t matter.”  
Ben reaches across and strokes gently at the bruises on Callum’s face. “Proper little hero, ain’t ya?” He takes another swig of the whisky and passes it back to Callum. “I was thinkin’ on the way back. I reckon I’ve found a way to make you feel a bit more comfortable about me buyin’ you a house.”  
“Oh yeah?” asks Callum. “You bin plottin’ again, have ya?  
“Yeah. Would ya feel different if we was co-owners?”  
“Might do,” says Callum.  
“OK then, marry me.”  
Callum chokes on his swig of whisky. “What?”  
“Marry me Cal.”  
“Serious?”  
“Deadly.”  
Callum stares at him in disbelief, unable to form words.  
“Right, well, I’m exhausted,” says Ben, getting up and heading for the bedroom. “I’m off to bed. Give me yer answer when ya come in.”  
Callum lingers for a while on his own in the living room. He crosses to the window and watches as the sun rises on the best Christmas Day he’s ever had. Then he goes into the bedroom, undresses quickly and slips into bed beside Ben, who’s already half-asleep. He stirs as he feels Callum spooning him.  
“Who would we get to be witnesses?” asks Callum.  
“Hmm, well… I was thinkin’ Jack Brannin’” murmurs Ben. “An’ I s’pose that would mean Whitney an’ all.”  
“Yeah?”  
“Mm. You in?”  
“Yeah, go on then. Happy Christmas, husband-to-be.”  
Ben turns in his arms. “Happy Christmas Cal. Love ya.”


End file.
